PuPu's Saga
by Jeremy Chapter
Summary: Updated 7 Dec 05. New Chapters: 34, 35, 36. Selvine & SeiFuu. An immediate sequel to the game: A tale of love, deception, strife, and betrayal amongst the SeeDs. Quistis as Garden Headmistress, Irvine as philosopher, Selphie as construction worker...
1. Author's Extended Foreword

The FF VIII Fanfic

**_PuPu's Saga_******

_"Un homme et une jeune fille sur une plage"_

**by Jeremy Chapter ( a little man could not have made so big a depression."**

-Norman Thomas

**Synopsis: **Explores the esoteric alien side-quest in FF8, picking up just where the game ends. A tale of love, mystery, deception, betrayals, murders, and the SeeDs' greatest challenge yet – to stop a war threatening the end of all _Terra_!

**Dedication**

To all the little guys,

To the authors of one-hit wonders,

To the aspiring neophytes, to the starving artists,

To the unsung heroes, to the under-appreciated, and to those who are down on their luck.

This is for half of the dreamers and to all of the dream-chasers in the world.

To which will you belong?

**_PuPu's Saga_**

_"Un homme et une jeune fille sur une plage" _

**by Jeremy Chapter ( am a part of all that I have met;**

_Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'_

_Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades_

_For ever and for ever when I move."_

-Tennyson, Alfred Lord

"Ulysses"_ 18_

Dramatis Persona Hominis 

Laguna

Raine

Kiros

Ward

Ellone

Cid

Edea

Quistis

Zell

Irvine

Selphie

Squall

Rinoa

Match

Mina Charleston

Merali

Pearl

Sujie

Jay, Sergeant

Zen, Ph. D. & J. D.

Seifer

Fuujin

Raijin

Jeremy Chapter

Rishi

Lily Furgle

Cary Kay

Darby LeBard

Eris

Satomi

Faeyre

Caraway, General

Dr. Odine

Dr. Kadowaki

Julia

**Author's Extended Foreword: **(7 Dec 05)

"_I think they love not Art_

_Who break the crystal of a poet's heart_

_That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat."_

-Wilde, Oscar

_De Profundis_

**Disclaimer** to save my own ass: Every element belongs to Squaresoft, Inc., not to me, unless I made it up. The copyright for the literary work _PuPu's Saga_ _"Un homme et une jeune fille sur une plage"_ , for the name **Jeremy Chapter**, as well as any other original character names and locations all belong to me, unless otherwise specified. No part or whole of this work belonging to me may be reproduced, broadcasted, transmitted, or publicly performed for commercial purposes without my explicit written permission. Those who wish to base future derivative works off of _PuPu's Saga_ _"Un homme et une jeune fille sur une plage"_  are welcome and in fact encouraged to do so. Squaresoft, Inc. neither endorses nor sponsors me or this work. As far as I know neither does Square-Enix. I reserve rights of ownership to everything that Square-Enix and Squaresoft do not already own.

If you would like to put _PuPu's Saga_ _"Un homme et une jeune fille sur une plage"_  up on your website, feel free to copy and paste from whatever url you are engaging this story. Please inform me prior to taking the story so that I may give you my written consent to use it and that I may be mindful to notify you of postings of new installment chapters as I finish them.

This fanfiction picks up right where the game ends. If it interferes chronologically with any other fanfic, just treat the celebration at the beginning of the story as some other party that Balamb Garden throws after Squall goes through Time Compression again to kill some other sorceress named Ultimecia during which Rinoa kisses Squall one more time because they both see another shooting star, and during which Laguna, Ward, Kiros, and Ellone all just happen to be in Winhill visiting Raine's grave a second time. If you know already who Laguna's son is, then Setting 2 is not essential to the plot and can be skipped. This fanfic has many allusions to Final Fantasy VIII and IX, some of which are pretty profound. Those who have not explored the world of Final Fantasy VIII as thoroughly as others might miss some subtle clues while those who have explored the world too thoroughly can guess half the plot out right. Stuff that I made up wasn't meant to be corny, corny as they may be. The reading may be slow until the tempo picks up in Setting 11 or so. Skipping straightway to Setting 11 would pass over many of the hints about the game or foreshadowing elements about plot twists to come. Sometimes I get caught up with grandiloquence and neglect the beauty of terseness. Please bear with me through Settings 13 and 18 in particular. Volume I (or "Division 1") closes with Setting 26. By the time you've gotten to Volumes II and III, the story will have picked up so much momentum that the rest of the story (up to Setting 48) will fly by.

I have never and still don't promise the perfect story, but I'm warning you how big a commitment you have to make to finish this perdurable behemoth. Maybe I'm talking to myself here. The story focuses mainly on Squall, his regular groups (minus Rinoa), and some new characters like Mina, Merali, and Match. I tried to keep the number of Settings focused on characters from the older generation to a minimum. Dante, Jay, Lily Furgle, Jeremy, Pearl, Sujie, "Shawl's Stone", and "Garden of Good-byes" are other additions I've taken the liberty to make. As much I wanted to exclude Seifer and his posse altogether, I could not possibly. He has so much to offer as a character.

My saga is a prequel to Raine Ishida's "Hope," and though people cannot copyright _ideas_ these days, only _expressions_, I have no problem with respectfully attributing even un-copyrightable intellectual property to their rightful owners. Here are my current acknowledgments and to the best of my knowledge, their current email addresses: The idea of Mina belongs to the aforementioned Raine Ishida. The idea of Titanus belongs to Dark Horse. The idea of Stella, Laura, and Shojora belong to Kate Lorraine. The idea of Lunar belongs to Barrett Machain. The idea of Eris belongs to Blackrose.

I realized that the length of this 2-Volume, 48-Setting, 550-plus-single-spaced-page epic novel would deter most fans from picking it up, and strain from that small number even fewer who would ever finish reading it. In order to boost the interest and preserve the incentive to keep reading, I've begged the assistance of some very talented artists to whom I shall give due and grateful credit for their pieces for each chapter. The fanart is posted at my homepage. I've also tried to infuse a little humor into each Setting through the characters. Please excuse me if what they say is not what you would have liked to hear. I had read all the stories of Seifer being a menace to society or Seifer's sudden change of heart that I could bear. I couldn't accept straight off any over maudlin, too-perfect romances between Squall and Rinoa. I was horrified by the possibility that Cid was capable of domineering over Squall after he had just saved the world. I hadn't seen too many people use GFs as more than just weapons of war in their stories (the exception being Kate Lorraine's "The Claiming of Shiva" in which she incorporates lines like, "Oh, Shiva wanted this one. This one, she had to make her own."). I never did find Rinoa's new sorceress powers all that entertaining. I thought Ultimecia's return or the repeat of the Lunar Cry were exhausted and unoriginal. I felt Squaresoft left a lot of things ambiguous and in want of explanation. I was mad at all the fanfics that are left incomplete and leave the reader hanging. I hope not to fix all of this, but to present before you something new, if you give me the chance. The four years of my life I planned on sacrificing to complete this saga is the price of evading hypocrisy. It's not about the fame. It's not about the glory. And it's definitely not about the glamour of fanfiction writing – there is no such glamour in empty coffee pots, disheveled hair, and burning the midnight oil as far as I'm aware. It's about truth.

Be warned that my writing does not exude the elegance or delectability of Kate Lorraine's. My style has neither the refinement nor delicacy of DJ Johnston's; neither the magnitude nor the endurance of Marcus'; neither the sentimentality nor the poignancy of Arian's; neither the temerity nor the intrepidity of Darren Shier's; neither the gravity nor flourish of Larathia's; neither the maturity nor efficiency of Malice Shaw's. I do not elevate the language as the epic tradition behooves like XmagicalX does. Instead, I elevate the voice. The prose I promise is whimsical and sprightly. I plan to give you an exploration of the people and their interaction with each other and the world of Final Fantasy VIII. I have intended for you not to get caught up in the plot as much as to be swept away by the drama and pathos. Most of the plot movement occurs through dialogue or internal monologue because the story is character-centric, not action-centric.

The creativity I offer, I'm afraid, extends only as far as the bounds of my eccentricity and the reader's willingness to be led. The saddest part is when you have to leave this dream world that I've constructed. Yes, I am here to wield the mad power of molding worlds as I see fit, and I can proudly say that I do it in a way unadulterated by external opinions because it is my story and I planned it out before all the input began to pour in. I think I am thoughtlessly undertaking the emendation, extension, and (Hyne-willing) the establishment of canon. _Ut sint unus auctor et una veritas sed multae recitationes_.

Now, for my final word of caution: I abuse the usage of participles and adverbs, and I am shameless in experimenting with narrative presence, distance, and time (though nowhere near as adept or fanatical as Woolf or Joyce). I have in store for you my finest stock of gentle satire, gentile lampoon, bittersweet humor, and every last wicked intention. If the story happens to bore, bewilder, annoy, offend, or disgust you in any way, then it is a pity. _Caveat emptor_, take product as is. If you want another story, or a sequel perhaps, drop a line with any fictitious character names you would like to see incorporated in it, or any fresh ideas. So now, without further delay, I shall make my invocation and send you off into my own little microcosm of Final Fantasy VIII:

_"Be with me, Muse of all Desire, Erato,_

_While I call up kings, the early times…_

_A greater history opens before my eyes,_

_A greater task awaits me."_

-Vergil

_Aeneid_ VII


	2. Recommended Background Music Song List

**_Recommended Background Music Song List _****- First Choice** or Second Choice**__**

**Author's Extended Foreword**: Takashi Sorimachi's **"Poison"**

**Prologue**: **"Canta Per Me" **from Noir OST

**Setting 01**: **"The Unquiet Void"** from WDMC OST

**Setting 02**: Cagnet's **"Close To Me"** or Utada Hikaru's "Hear Me Cry"

**Setting 03**: Kiroro's **"Nagai Aida"**

**Setting 04**: **"The Unquiet Void"** from What Dreams May Come OST

**Setting 05**: Cagnet's **"Here We Are Again"** AND **"Missing Each Other"**

**Setting 06**: Cagnet's **"Shiawase Na Ketsumatsu"**

**Setting 07**: Cagnet's **"Silent Emotion"**

**Setting 08**: S.E.N.S's **"Wish (Instrumental)"**

**Setting 09**: Cagnet's **"Into You"**

**Setting 10**: **"The Unquiet Void"** from What Dreams May Come OST

**Setting 11**: S.E.N.S's **"I For You** **(Instrumental)"**

**Setting 12**: **"Ennio Morricone" **from WDMC OST or Cagnet's "Here We Are Again"

**Setting 13**: Annie Yee's **"Ni Shi Wo De Xing Fu Ma?"**

**Setting 14**: S.E.N.S's **"Kirara (Instrumental)"**

**Setting 15**: S.H.E.'s **"Dwo Yi Dian"**

**Setting 16**: Section-S's **"On and On"** or Lifehouse's "Breathing"

**Setting 17**: S.H.E.'s **"Ai Qing De Hai Yang"**

**Setting 18**: Section-S's **"On and On" **or Jay Chou's "Long Juen Feng"

**Setting 19**: Luna Sea's **"I For You"**

**Setting 20**: **"The Unquiet Void"** from What Dreams May Come OST

**Setting 21**: F4's **"Jue Bu Nen Si Chu Ni" **or Cagnet's "Silent Emotion"

**Setting 22**: **"The Unquiet Void"** from What Dreams May Come OST

**Setting 23**: **"Canta Per Me"** from Noir OST

**Setting 24**: S.H.E.'s **"Always On My Mind"**

**Setting 25**: S.E.N.S's **"Kirara (Instrumental)"**

**Setting 26**: **"The Unquiet Void"** from What Dreams May Come OST


	3. Prologue: 1716 DAY 27, Tomb of the Unkno...

Prologue: 1716 DAY 27, Tomb of the Unknown King Main Chamber 

_"O cruel one, bestow on me_

_Some taken of your sovereign sway,_

_Which I may follow earnestly,_

_And never from its precept stray._

_If you would have me fade away_

_In silence, then account me dead,_

_But if you'd hear my ancient lady,_

_Then Love himself my cause shall plead._

_My soul to contraries inured_

_Is made of wax and adamant,_

_And well prepared for Cupid's law._

_Whether soft or hard my heart is yours,_

_To grave it leave to you I'll grant,_

_And to your will I'll bow with awe._

-Cervantes

_Don Quixote of La Mancha Part__ 2__ XII___

       _H_e was bleeding.

       From the way that it felt, it had to be pretty bad.  Under his shirt there were, no doubt, multiple punctures through which he could feel the red fluid seeping out and soaking his white shirt.  Had he his wits, he might have realized that he didn't have much time left before the end.

       Nothing seemed to be happening.  The drumming in his ears was silent but somehow concurrently more intense than it could ever have sounded in reality.  His mind couldn't register too many thoughts at once; he could only connect a small number of them; his movements were sluggish; his limbs were nowhere to be found; the world was now at rest, now swirling; now muddled, now clear.

       He'd been in combat long enough to recognize these symptoms: He was in shock.

       Looking down, he caught a glimpse of his completely red shirt and coldness seized him.  __

       _She betrayed me!_

       He could not get over that thought, he, crouching there, arms pulled in close, shivering in his bloodstained uniform.  The image of the girl running out from the cavern played itself over and over in his head.  He tried to stop it, but his memory refused to obey, forcing him to revisit the blue, the flapping, waving blue that she had down over her back.  The blue she had that was so visible as she ran away.

       _What happened?_

_       He grimaced as different parts of his body began to throb.  He had to remember; he had to go back further.  He saw fire, he felt his body being pierced from all sides, he perceived his initial fear, he stomached the onslaught of doubt, daunt, and imminent death, but only after the blue forced itself back into reminiscence did he feel obliterated._

       He closed his eyes and shook his head violently, desperately trying to recall what had just happened.  All the world seemed to bob ineffectually in eerie limbo.

       _She betrayed me!_

       He had to get beyond that.  There was something else, something he was missing.  If only he weren't trembling so much; if he could shut out the pain flooding his system and ripping into his muscles like a jagged saw, twisting from where it was nestled as to hook more sinews on its way through his body.  The imagined sound of his flesh being torn off by strips nauseated him.

       His eyes shot open.  It had just come to him.

       _I was buried alive._

_       He tried to look around, focus his eyes, and find anything that looked vaguely familiar.  He wasn't certain if the noise exploding in his ears was someone's screaming or a great tremor sent by Nature herself.  Just as his mind began to question the seemingly inert passing of time, his vision cleared and his eyes seized a target. _

       It was Rinoa, standing above him with a wicked-looking dagger that she was raising over his head.

       _Am I to die? he wondered as the feelings of loneliness and dread washed over him._

       In response to that question which he had forbidden himself to ever ask, a dark phantom appeared from overhead and ominously called his name, beckoning to him.

       "Squall…"

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	4. Setting 01: 1220 DAY 0, Alcaud Plains ar...

ENTRANCE

**DIVISION 1:** ON THE BREACH

**Setting 01: 1220 DAY 0, Alcaud Plains around Balamb**

_"A savage race, that hoard, and sleep, and feed … know not me._

_I cannot rest from travel."_

-Tennyson, Alfred Lord

"Ulysses" 5

       ___E__lixir_  Pathetic plea.

       _Elixir_  Pathetic plea

       _I need an Elixir_  Self-evident declaration

       _Help me_!  Punctuated despair and pathetic plea

       _Anyone have an Elixir_?  Rhetorical question and wishful thinking

       _Please help me_  Pathetic plea and self-evident futility

       …  Pause and resumption

       _My poor feet_  Plaintive self-pity

       …  Pause and resumption

       …?  Awareness and interest

       …!  Sudden realization and flood of jubilance

       _There is Balamb Garden_!  Second and self-evident declaration

       …  Self-reassurance and calmness

       _There is someone coming_!  Awareness and suspicion

       _Who is there_?  Nonspecifically directed interrogative

       _Squall_? Quasi-specifically directed interrogative and wishful thinking

       _Squall_!  Reckless presumption and exuberance

       _Is that you_?  Quasi-specifically directed interrogative

       _Hey, Squall_  Relation-creative-purposive address and wavering certainty

       …  Pause and closer inspection

       …!  Awareness and corollary certainty

       _Squall, are you there_? Quasi-specifically directed interrogative, extended presumption, uncertainty, and incipient inquietude

       _Heavens_!  Awareness and reflex panic

       _Help me, someone_!  Nonspecifically directed imperative directive, growing panic, and wishful thinking

       _Squall_!  Reflex defensive assertion and specifically directed, imbedded directive

       _Please, no_  Plaintive plea, specifically directed, elliptical imperative directive, deplorable capitulation, and fear 

       _Please_  Plaintive plea, specifically directed, imperative directive, and unmitigated fear

       _NO_!  Awareness, plaintive plea, specifically directed, elliptical imperative directive and recoil

       – 

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

The syntactical structure might seem a bit weird at first glance, because I have a unique method of transcribing what the aliens are communicating.

The "stage directions" after each line they communicates are necessary, and they aren't stage directions; PuPu's alien clan does not communicate with their voices, only their thoughts. They don't have facial expressions either, which means to communicate elements such as sarcasm or emotion, I have to add the "stage directions" and, if you noticed, keep the emotion-denoting punctuation marks (question or exclamation) outside of the brackets.

In actuality, those "stage directions" are called the "pragmatics" of language. The words they actually "speak" are called the "semantics" of language. Because they aren't actually making any sounds with their mouths, I used brackets instead of "quotations" to indicate what they want to communicate with their thoughts. Also, throughout the rest of the story, thoughts are _italicized_ and speech is unmodified. So what the aliens want to communicate show up _like this_.

However, even by including the pragmatics after the semantics, there is still no way I can differentiate for you which alien is which. If they did not greet each other when a third or fourth being waltzed in, or say their respective names in each line, we would have no idea who the addresser and addressee were for any given statement. That is the flaw of indirect narration, I'm afraid, and I will try to find ways to rectify it.

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	5. Setting 02: 1427 DAY 1, Winhill Cemetery

 **Setting 02: 1427 DAY 1, Winhill Cemetery**

_"This is my son…when I am gone._

_He works his work, I mine."_

-Tennyson, Alfred Lord

"Ulysses" 33

       _"W_ell, I'm here now, and I probably should have come here a lot more often than I have, this being the first time, so I'm sorry."

       Laguna Loire snapped his fingers to pass the time, unsure if what he said was coherent and clueless about what to say next.  He'd never seen his wife's burial marker before, much less talk to it, and he was trying his hardest to keep a smile on his face.  What he really wanted to do was plop down right there and beg for Raine's forgiveness.

       "This actually isn't an awkward situation at all," he lied, "I can almost see you there looking skeptical.  So, if it's okay with you, I'm going to rehearse what the one monologue that I've always imagined that I would have with you once I saw you again."

       He stopped to think about what he just said before struggling to rephrase himself, "Of course I won't be saying your lines out loud cause you'll be saying them in my head, but it'll work, I think."

       Taking a deep breath, Laguna tried to make some more excuses, even though he knew there was no point.  And yet, somehow, he was comforted by the fact that had Raine been standing there, she wouldn't have minded regardless.  She would have stood there silently with that understanding, sympathetic smile, ready to laugh at him lightly and let him off the hook.  Yes, he could see her standing there now, doing exactly that.  It loosened him up a bit, but it also made him wish that she would just get angry at him, start calling him names, cursing at him, or beating him…anything to let him know how she really felt.

       It was getting harder and harder to keep up that smile.  He realized at that moment that the coldest words were what Raine didn't say.  She would never chastise him even if she were still alive.  But now it was too late to hear her utter even a single word.

       On the verge of cracking, it seemed like a good idea to change the subject.  He thought about going off the script and talking about something that might not make him feel so guilty, but nothing came to mind.  Then he remembered that he could always talk about their son whom he was sure Raine would be curious about.  Yet, he was determined to save that topic for last.

       Unable to come up with anything fast, Laguna could feel himself becoming more and more nervous.  He even caught himself antsily tugging on the tails of his unbuttoned dress shirt and swaying back and forth.  He kicked himself for not rehearsing it more times before actually coming, but it was too late for that now.  Now he shook his head in disgust.

       "Looks like I've botched another one, Raine," he confessed finally, trying to joke about it with a quick, exaggerated frown.  He imagined Raine rolling her eyes, imitating that silly frown, and shaking her head, once again absolving him.  He wanted so bad to have her throw daggers at him with her eyes.

       "Laguna, you loser," he scolded himself, "you can't even make a figment of your imagination get angry with you."

       Raine chuckled and playfully kicked some dirt onto his shoes.  Then she tried to mimic his swaying motion, which was making her dizzy.

_       This is embarrassing, he thought to himself, scratching his head._

       "Can you tell me that I'm horrible, that I don't deserve to live?" he asked her.

       Raine placed her index finger against her closed lips, shaking her head.

       "I'm serious," he entreated, trying again.

       She humorously covered her ears and pretended not to hear him.

       "Well, fine then, be that way," Laguna conceded, slightly irritated at getting beaten in an argument with a speechless spirit.

       Raine stuck her tongue out at him and pushed him lightly with the meanest face she could put on.  It didn't look very mean to Laguna, and he told her so.  Her features softened a bit, not expecting her husband to be so straightforward.

       Laguna finally gathered his thoughts and enough courage to spew out clumsily, "I know it wasn't fair of me to leave you like I did, but that doesn't make it right for you to leave before I can say that I'm sorry.  This was one time that you never gave me the chance to pay for my mistake."

       That was what he wanted to say all along, how he felt on the inside, both guilty and cheated.  In retaliation, Raine did her best to pull off a mischievous snicker.

       "Why did you leave me?" he asked a little bit louder.  He could feel the anger boiling inside him, giving him enough strength to press her more forcefully with his questions.  "What was it?  Was it a disease, something natural, or was it me?  It was me, wasn't it?  Tell me."

       Before Laguna had finished his last question, Raine had picked up three rocks lying by her epitaph and begun to juggle them, finding them more interesting than her husband's whining.

       "Stop that," he said, trying to swat away the imaginary stones, not realizing how idiotic he looked to any third person.

       Raine wasn't listening now, surprising herself with how many stones she could keep in the air.  It was way more entertaining than Laguna's confession, she decided.  Ten seemed like a commendable number.  Maybe she would be bold enough to attempt an eleventh for good measure.

       Laguna was shaking involuntarily because he was mad at her for not listening and at himself for getting mad at a dead person when he was the one at fault.  He calmed himself, realizing that this was exactly what Raine wanted…an angry Laguna who wanted to project the guilt and shift the blame.  She wanted to protect him from feeling as if he had wronged her, even if that meant making herself seem so heartless.

       "I'll stay in Winhill until you want me to go then," he suggested.

       For the first time, Raine looked concerned.  She shook her head, signaling to Laguna that he didn't have to do that.

       Laguna realized that this was her weakness.  She wanted him to stay, but didn't want to say it, just like she didn't want him to stay in her little town because of her.  He wasn't doing this for the pleasure of watching Raine grow worried, though, but because he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he left Winhill again so suddenly.  He owed that much to her, and seeing how disconcerted she was, as well as knowing her nature of always letting him off easy, he knew he was doing the right thing by making that promise.

       At any rate, she might have married him so she wouldn't have to listen to him beg her again and again to reconsider.  Perhaps she was banking on his long vacation all long as a reprieve from all his droning.  Had she known that he would have come back to whine after she was dead, she never would have agreed to marry him.

       "I won't leave you.  I never should have," he added.

       Unexpectedly, Raine let all the rocks she was juggling drop, visibly moved by his discovery and decision.

       "I don't know what else to say except I'm sorry," he admitted, lowering his head.

       Raine tried to comfort him with her puppy-dog look, walked over next to him, and caressed his cheek before retreating to her original spot.

       "I guess we were both lucky that Squall is that strong," Laguna brought up suddenly, making sure to get it over with before he forgot.  "I tried my best to take care of him, but he turned out all right on his own.  Very independent, doesn't need anyone's help."

       Raine looked confused, but Laguna was too caught up with his praises to notice.

       "I mean, he grew up with all that opposition, but he never let it get to him.  It's great that he doesn't concern himself with what other people think of him.  Tries not to listen to anyone who tries to give him any garbage about his not being able to take care of himself or making the wrong decision.  Squall understands himself and knows when he's right, and that's what counts.  Doesn't want anyone else to distract him from that.  Pretty strong, huh?  Always trusts himself to make the right decisions and take care of everything personally-"

       Raine was waving for Laguna to stop.  She was totally lost, and regardless to whomever her husband was raving about, he didn't seem to be living a healthy life.

       "You know, our son. Squall?  The big success?" Laguna picked up, thinking her interruption was another joke.

       Raine looked stunned, making it abundantly clear that he had better not die any time soon because she was going to make him pay for choosing such a dumb name.

       Laguna held up his hands in defense, stammering, "I-I t-thought you named him, because I sure as hell didn't."

       The realization that Ellone named their son hit them at the same time.  The look on Raine's face spelled out that Ellone would do well not to die before her godmother's wrath subsided, as she would surely pay for choosing such a dumb name.

       Laguna rubbed his chin and asked, "You didn't name him in all that time?"

       Raine shot him a "don't-push-me" look.

       "Okay, okay," he said quickly, and shifted the subject back to Ellone, "What did you expect her to name him?"

       Raine made a "duh" face and mouthed, "Cloud."

       "I'll get even with her for you, sweetie.  I'll name her son Irvine or something stupid like that," Laguna offered.

       Raine nearly doubled over laughing.

       Encouraged by her propitious reaction, Laguna took that chance to say that from what he had heard, Squall had turned out just like him.

       His wife was unimpressed, thinking to herself, "I thought you said he was a success."

Instead of telling him that, though, she smiled tactfully, took a step forward, and gestured with a wave over his face for him to close his eyes.

       Laguna closed them, but he could still see as if they were open.  He was able to see the bright afternoon change into night, and all the stars lighting up against the dark velvet above.  Looking down, he scowled in dismay as the grave marker vanished before his eyes.  His brown slacks turned into black army pants, and his shirt into the sporty blue vest that he had worn when he was young.

       "What did you want to talk to me about?" rang a familiar voice from behind him.

       Laguna knew whom that voice belonged to before he spun around.  It was the same one that he had longed to hear for nearly two decades, but he was too amazed by this new development to lift Raine in the air.  It was déja vue for he had seen all this somewhere before.  He looked through every memory he had with Raine before he realized that she was replaying for him that sentimental scenario in which he proposed to her.  Astonished as he was, Laguna allowed himself to relive the moment, enjoying the miracle without questioning how it was possible that they could go through the entire sequence again: He turns around, not sure how to pop the question, waving her off and telling her to forget it; she runs over and pulled his arm, asking him to stay; he swings around, grabs her hand, and fits her finger with a gold ring; she looks at him questioningly; he shows her the gold ring on his own finger and watches as her quizzical countenance melts smoothly into a heart-wrenching, near-whimpering smile; and finally they share the seemingly eternal embrace that made all his consternation about the proposition seem worthwhile. 

       Laguna's feet were numb by the time this awesome experience was over and he had to make an effort not to collapse as night turned back into day.  Once again he was in the present, staring at her marker, shocked that the illusion had vanished so quickly.  He couldn't see Raine anymore, but some way or another, Laguna felt as if she was right there beside him, providing the same comfort.

       "Uncle Laguna!"

       Having grown accustomed to the unbroken tranquility of Winhill for the past twenty minutes, Laguna's eardrums were nearly shattered by Ellone's soft but nevertheless splitting voice.  For an instant Laguna was almost glad that Raine had left since Ellone would surely have been toast had she arrived a few seconds earlier.

       There she was, Squall's "big sister," green scarf and all, trying to make her way down the grassy hill without spraining her dainty ankles.  She waved in her usual blinding splendor so innocently that even Laguna had to gawk before grinning and raising his head in acknowledgement.

       On the summit behind Ellone he could see Kiros and Ward.  Kiros pointed at something behind Laguna.  Just a short distance away, the brilliant Balamb Garden drew near, skipping  from hill to hill.

       Laguna stood up, feeling a sense of pride swell in him with the knowledge that the craft carried a true hero, his son.  He almost felt giddy.  _I can't believe he's really mine!_

       And auspiciously, Raine was there to see it.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	6. Setting 03: 1458 DAY 1, Winhill Outskirt...

Setting 03: 1458 DAY 1, Winhill Outskirts 

_"Down stage he strode some paces,_

_grave, tall in affliction, his long arms outheld._

_Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed softly._

_Softly he sang to a dusty seascape there: A Last Farewell._

_A headland, a ship, a sail upon the billows._

_Farewell.  A lovely girl, her veil awave_

_upon the wind upon the headland, wind around her."_

-Joyce, James

_Ulysses II_

       _"T_his place must have a plethora of sentimental value, Ellone," Kiros said, "otherwise I don't think he would be so determined to stay here."

       "I've never seen Uncle Laguna so fired up and decisive before, Mr. Kiros," Ellone commented.

       Kiros considered it and gave Ward a knowing look.

       "Neither have we," was the consensus.

       Ellone looked at Ward and giggled.

       "No one knew on the White SeeD ship, Mr. Ward," Ellone asked, "but how did you lose your ability to speak?"

       Ward was anything but offended by the question.  He pointed back in the direction of Winhill, almost out of view.

       Kiros did not mince words in his explanation, "Your uncle pushed us off a cliff."

       Ellone gasped in amusement, "That simple, huh?  No offense, Mr. Ward."

       Ward shrugged good-naturedly.  He considered himself lucky.  Befriending Laguna meant taking risks.  It could have been worse; for instance, had Laguna actually tried to save him with one of his hair-brained ideas, he surely would have lost more than his tongue.  In his next life, he would invest in some 'miscellaneous Laguna hazard insurance' before the inevitable accidents and become filthy rich.  He might even retire early, or, as safety behooved, at least before Laguna's antics retired him permanently.

       They had stopped and were waiting for the Estharian ship.  It was actually carrying a full load, but the pilots could not turn down the request of three presidential aides.  What Ellone didn't understand was how Esthar was okay with doing without their president for a week or two.  Then she considered the possibility that all he did was put his signature on a few papers every day for tradition's sake and for the bureaucracy's.  As long Kiros and Ward were there, Esthar would be fine.

       Ellone frowned, recalling something her uncle told her.

       "Was this during your escape from the Lunatic Pandora?" she asked, referring the trio's final reconnaissance assignment together on the Centra continent.

       Both Kiros and Ward nodded.  _We just ignorantly called it the 'Crystal Pillar' back then._

       "Uncle Laguna told me that he held off forty guards to give you two a chance to make it down a side path while he had to eventually make the suicide dive himself," Ellone said earnestly.

       Kiros and Ward exchanged looks.  They were used to Laguna's lunacies, but they had never heard this version of their escape before.  Ward broke into uncontrollable laughter while Kiros made a disgusted "psssh" sound.

       Kiros took Ellone aside and said gently, "Now Ellone, your Uncle Laguna has a tendency to exaggerate when he tells his stories…either that or he hit his head on the way down."

       "Oh," Ellone murmured, "which part?"

       Kiros thought about it and replied, "Not much, just that part about holding off forty Estharian guards by himself, then covering our escape, and that last bit about making the jump himself."  _Of course, they were the bad guys then._

       "Uncle Laguna wouldn't do that!" Ellone exclaimed.

       "We're talking about the same uncle of yours, Laguna Loire, right?" he asked, just to make sure.

       Ellone saw Kiros' point.

       "What weapon did he say he used?" Kiros pressed on, interested by Laguna's fantastical embellishment of the truth.

       Ellone blinked.

       "I thought you knew," she answered, showing her surprise that so simple an answer could have eluded him.  "He was using his bare hands."

       She turned to look at Ward who seemed to her like he was choking on something.

       "No, seriously," she cried, "he gave his gun to you guys in case you ran into any monsters on the way down.  How thoughtful of him."

       Kiros vocalized exactly what was on Ward's mind, "Yeah, all three seconds of the way down."

       Ellone finally saw the truth, but was adamant about preserving Laguna's integrity.

       "There has to be something good about him…why else would Raine marry him?"

       "More likely he probably had something on her and coerced her to marry him through blackmail," Ward thought to himself.

       "He's probably getting old," Ellone tried in desperation.

       Kiros snickered.

       "Laguna acts your age," he pointed out, "but at least he made this holographic message for us to give to Squall.  I'll transfer it to Balamb Garden with the Esthar transport's antenna as soon as it picks us up."

       "I hope he found something nice to say," Ellone said.

       The unadded "and that it's coherent" was understood by all three.

       "I bet it runs something cheesy, like, 'So, how's the weather, son?  I'm your father now, so if you want to change your last name, son, you can,'" Kiros added in afterthought.

       Ellone scowled, saying her uncle wasn't that corny.

       Kiros suggested that the trip into space might have stressed Ellone out more than they thought, so she punched him.

       Ward pointed at the holovid, suggesting that they take a quick peek.  This Ellone was against, but even she was a little curious.

       "How about just the first few seconds, before they can get into any of the private talk?" Kiros suggested.

       Ellone could live with that, so Kiros typed in the password that Laguna knew Squall would eventually guess right, LOIRE.  A miniature version of Laguna appeared, scratching his head and shifting his balance from leg to leg, unsure of what to say.

       "So, how's the weather, son?  I'm your father now, so if you want to change your last name, son, you can," Laguna mumbled.

       Kiros was laughing so hard that he dropped the holovid, which shut off automatically.

       Suddenly their attention was turned to someone coughing in the bushes behind them.  Kiros moved aside some shrubbery and saw a lady having collapsed in the tall grass.  He checked her pulse rate and breathing.

       "She's dying.  Definitely needs medical treatment immediately.  Even a Blood Soul couldn't inflict this many status defects.  Perhaps an advanced stage Malboro-BTR poisoning.  Nothing like I've ever seen before.  She must have been addicted to it for a long time," Kiros concluded, knowing that it was impossible for any doctor in Winhill to furnish the technology needed to save this lady.

       "What is a Blood Soul, Mr. Kiros?" Ellone asked, paling.

       "An undead monster.  Just some skeletal fish that floats around in the air.  There are a lot of them around Winhill, but I'm sure even this kind of poisoning is beyond its ability."

       "And you make this assessment based on what kind of experience?" Ellone inquired slowly.

       "Five years in the Pan-Galbadia Medical School Gold Class and a surgeon's degree _summa cum laude," Kiros replied, still checking her vital signs._

       Ellone whistled, raising her eyebrows.

       Ward nodded, remembering how Kiros had once told him that familiarity with the anatomy of various creatures made him so much more efficient a killer, knowing all the vital parts at which to strike first.

       _And he's good with those katal daggers too.  Sort of like super-sized scalpels, Ward reflected._

       "Hey, look!" Ellone exclaimed, pointing at the Esthar ship appearing over the horizon and speeding towards them.

       Kiros looked at Ellone and said, "Don't even think about it, there is no room for a fourth passenger with that full load."

       Ellone considered the situation.  It was essential that Kiros and Ward return to the control room, and this lady definitely needed help.  Ellone herself was the only one who didn't really have to make it back on the first flight.

       "She can have my spot," she told Kiros.  "Just call ahead for another ship to come and get me in five minutes."

       Kiros nodded, and then added, "We should notify her family."

       He turned to the sick women and tried to find out where she lived.  Ellone doubted that she could hear him, so she checked the woman's pockets.

       There were no identification cards like those they had in Esthar; Winhill was too small a place for any need of that.  However, besides a pack of green Malboro baby tentacle cigarettes, Ellone did manage to dig out a pair of keys.  Seeing them, she put her hand on Kiros' shoulder and told him he didn't have to ask the woman anymore.  Kiros gave her a questioning look.

       "I recognize these keys," she said softly.  "This one locks up the bar, and the other one our rooms."

       Kiros lifted his eyebrows, thinking, "What luck!  Now Laguna doesn't need to convince her to let him live in his old house.  She'll probably end up selling him the house to pay off Esthar's medical bill."

       Their transport had landed and the crew urging them to hurry up.  They were already behind schedule because of the detour to Winhill.

       "Just wait here, okay?" Kiros told Ellone, hoisting the sick woman on his shoulder and running up the ramp.  Ward waved to Ellone and followed Kiros.

       "Okay, Mr. Kiros.  See you soon, Ward," Ellone called after them.

       The Esthar ship lifted off slowly, drawing up the ramp and sealing the hangar.  After it was five meters above the ground, it stopped, slightly rocking, like a suspended puppet wiggles, then made a smooth, in-place 50-degree turn before blasting forwards and disappearing over the horizon in seconds.

       When Ellone's eyes could no longer follow the vessel, she sat down delicately on a little grass patch beside the road.  She decided to spend the next five minutes twirling her green scarf and dusting off her white skirt.  She really did need a new outfit; the blue shirt she always wore was getting grubby.  Suddenly she noticed a fluffy, yellow bird race from one bush across the dirt path into another bush.

       Absolutely delighted by the chocobo's little feet, Ellone squealed, clapping at the same time.  She held out her hands and waited for the next chocobo to cross.  When it did, she just barely missed nabbing it.  And so it went.  The adorable babies even dropped items at times.  Ellone wheedled from them candy, stray Gil, some medicine, and even a piece of a vase.  _Totally random_, she thought to herself.

       She had been entertaining herself in this fashion for a short time before another light flashed over the horizon.

       "Right on time," she thought, giddily getting up and dusting her rump off.

       Ellone stood up, tugging her hair playfully, and waited to be picked up.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	7. Setting 04: 1533 DAY 1, Great Salt Lake ...

Setting 04: 1533 DAY 1, Great Salt Lake Perimeter 

_"It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed,_

when that little wisdom is its own."

-Inge, William Ralph

       _N__o sign of him here either  Nonspecifically directed declaration_

       _Well, keep searching  Imperative directive and indifference_

       _Where do you suppose he is?  Specifically directed, information interrogative_

       _If I knew, do you not think that you would know too?  Rhetorical question and scorn_

       _That is not what I meant  Reflex defensive assertion and disconcertedness _

       _I know what you meant  Complacent declaration and haughtiness_

       _I know you know what I meant  Ruffled retort and slight exasperation_

       _Then we understand each other?  Complacent, rhetorical question and indifference_

       _Crystal-clear, but where do you suppose he is?  Punchy, reflex dismissal and assertive interrogative_

       _If somehow I knew and you did not know, would we be randomly flying around?  Rhetorical question and vestigial condescension_

       …  Internal conflict and strained suppression of ire

       …  Self-satisfaction and pleasure

       _Why didn't the Carrier send more ships besides just ours?  Earnest interrogative_

       _Obviously the Carrier thinks one scout ship is enough locate him  Reflex ludicrous response_

       _We both know that is not true  Rebuff and strained patience_

       _I know you know that we both know the same thing  Self-righteous clarification, feigned admiration, and slight exasperation_

       _We have been through this many times already Declaration, disapproval, and mild annoyance_

       _Then stop bringing it up!  Snappy retort and scorn_

       …  Pause and discomfiture

       …  Indifference

       _You have not answered my question  Declaration and impatience_

       _Search me  Malicious, absurd suggestion_

       …  Pause and frustration

       _If I had the answer, you would have it already too  Supercilious explanation_

       …  Helplessness and dissatisfaction

       …  Dismissal and indifference

       _I fear the worst  Earnest opinion_

       _I know  Complacent, self-evident declaration_

       …  Tested tolerance

       …  Indifference

       _Where could he have gone?  Nonspecifically directed rhetorical question, befuddlement, and slight exasperation_

       _For the last time, I do not know!  Sudden expletive and flood of annoyance_

       _It was a rhetorical question.  I was not addressing you  Preplanned self-assured clarification and latent affront_

       _Well, I heard it  Indirect plaintive declaration and annoyance_

       _Then it is not my fault  Childish declaration of self-exculpation_

       _Just mind your own business and keep searching  Brusque imperative directive and dismissal_

       _What are you going to do?  Semi-interested interrogative, information interrogative, and blatant check_

       _You already know  Patronizing reminder_

       _What good is looking through the archived data of this planet's sample population?  Interrogative and skepticism_

       _You already know that too  Patronizing reminder and deliberate condescension_

       _Do you honestly believe that by knowing everything about the whole you can infer each individual's every possible action in any given situation?  Derisive rhetorical question, slight amusement, and intimated challenge_

       _What do you think?  Rhetorical question, information interrogative, and contemptuousness_

       _I know you just meant for me to search your thoughts  Complacent observance and purposive display_

       _I know we both know what I meant and that I would know what you would know  Self-righteous retort, contemptuousness, and intimated challenge_

       …  Disappointment and frustration

       …  Internal revel

       _Well, I think we should not assume anything before we know everything  Solemn declaration, indirect caution, and hint directive_

       _I knew you were thinking that, so please do not remind me  Complacent declaration, haughtiness, imperative directive, disdain_

       …  Ire

       …  Self-assuredness and indifference

       _Where could he be?  Nonspecifically directed rhetorical question, information interrogative, and curiosity_

       _Can you not even stop thinking for more than two seconds?  Sudden expletive, imbedded imperative directive, and annoyance_

       _I just think it is peculiar that after all our time here, he is the first data collector who has not returned from his routine run  Hasty declaration and mitigating clarification_

       _I know what you are thinking, you do not have to tell me  Complacent declaration, exasperation, and need directive_

       _And you do not find that peculiar?  Interrogative and lurking suspicion_

       _You already know what I think  Reflex argumentative assertion and intimated challenge_

       _You think the timing is peculiar because our data collection here is just about complete  Calm declaration and casual dismissal _

       _Yes, I know, because I was thinking that, and thank you for reminding me  Overly agreeable concurrence, brusquely feigned deference, and blatant causticity_

       _You have also considered the possibility that he has defected from the Clan!   Scrutinizing exclamation and marvel_

       _Yes I have considered that possibility!    Sudden expletive, condescension, and voluminous annoyance_

       _My apologies  Awkward concession, shock, and fading effervescence_

       _Stop repeating everything I think!  Directive with imbedded threat and annoyance_

       _Again, my apologies  Mitigating concession and daunt_

       …  Disgust

       …  Discomfiture and uncertainty

       …  Pause and mild annoyance

       …!  Awareness and curiosity

       _I detect it, do not repeat yourself  Blunt dismissal, imperative directive, and annoyance_

       _How clever of them!   Approving exclamation and admiration_

       _The ability to shift a city out of the visibility spectrum does not make the society intelligent  Offhand derogatory dismissal and pomposity_

       …  Adverse skepticism  

       _Land over there  Authoritative directive_

       _I know they cannot see us, but wouldn't we be breaching protocol distance to the samples?  Considerate interrogative, suggestive reminder, skepticism, and latent criticism_

       _It does not matter because they will not detect us anyway and we need to recharge our engine batteries  Dictatorial dismissal and didactic explanation_

       …  Doubt

       _Do not worry; even if they notice power surges, they are not advanced enough to discover us  Assurance and disdain_

       _Fine  Conceded accordance_

       _Now that we have landed, launch project 'Archangel'  Authoritative directive and eagerness_

       _I will  Casual acknowledgement_

       _Have our unit investigate the one they call 'Squall'  Directive and disdain_

       _Will do Casual acknowledgement and agreement_

       _Our recording incriminates this 'Squall' as the possible perpetrator  Stalwart declaration and biased speculation_

       _The recording is not definitive, and I would make no accusations just yet  Earnest declaration, reminder, intimated compromise, and purposive check_

       _The 'Archangel' unit will soon prove my worst suspicions  Self-assured declaration, anticipation, stimulation, and deliberate inattention_

       …  Hesitance and distrust

       _Anyway, I am going to go check on the prisoner  Self-important dismissal and indifference_

       _Fine  Callous acknowledgement_

       _I wonder if we should abduct another specimen to ransom PuPu back in case he is their prisoner  Nonspecifically directed declaration, consideration, and interest_

       _That is hardly necessary at this juncture, QyQy  Jeering declaration, hint directive, and purposive interference_

       _We shall see  Self-assured dismissal and disregard_

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

If you didn't catch this in Setting 01, the syntactical structure might seem a bit weird at first glance, because I have a unique method of transcribing what the aliens are communicating.

The "stage directions" after each line they communicates are necessary, and they aren't stage directions; PuPu's alien clan does not communicate with their voices, only their thoughts. They don't have facial expressions either, which means to communicate elements such as sarcasm or emotion, I have to add the "stage directions" and, if you noticed, keep the emotion-denoting punctuation marks (question or exclamation) outside of the brackets.

In actuality, those "stage directions" are called the "pragmatics" of language. The words they actually "speak" are called the "semantics" of language. Because they aren't actually making any sounds with their mouths, I used brackets instead of "quotations" to indicate what they want to communicate with their thoughts. Also, throughout the rest of the story, thoughts are _italicized_ and speech is unmodified. So what the aliens want to communicate show up _like this_.

However, even by including the pragmatics after the semantics, there is still no way I can differentiate for you which alien is which. If they did not greet each other when a third or fourth being waltzed in, or say their respective names in each line, we would have no idea who the addresser and addressee were for any given statement. That is the flaw of indirect narration, I'm afraid, and I will try to find was to rectify it.

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	8. Setting 05: 2045 DAY 1, Balamb Garden Ba...

Setting 05: 2045 DAY 1, Balamb Garden Ballroom 

_"How dull it is to pause, to make an end._

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!" 

-Tennyson, Alfred Lord

"Ulysses" 22

       _"I_'ve never had yellowish wine cooler before," Cid informed Quistis, holding up his glass.

       Quistis laughed agreeably, and then apologized for not being able to change before the banquet.  She looked around quickly at all the stately black suits and skirts that adorned the Garden members in the ballroom.

       "Perfectly understandable," Cid replied lightly, "to be running late and not have time to change coming back through Time Compression."

       "Nothing compared to what it took to get past Garden's front gate with Rinoa.  They still don't believe she's a good sorceress," Quistis joked.

       Cid snickered accordingly, taking another tentative sip of his wine cooler.  He paused and unsure how to proceed, redistributed his weight over his legs and pretended to enjoy the Garden orchestra.

       "So what is the real reason for sending Matron and Irvine off to enjoy the rest of the party?" Quistis asked, shifting her balance from her left foot to her right.  It was uncomfortable because she had been careless to stomp the ground too hard with it after throwing Irvine's torso off her shoulder just minutes before.  Always trying to impress girls with that overly casual, occasionally too carefree to be respectful, cowboy attitude.  Nothing mysterious about that.

       She sighed, and thought to herself, "If only Squall would do that."

       Cid rubbed the back of his brown-hair-matted head uneasily and forced a cheesy smile.  "This probably isn't the best time to ask this of you, but I have another mission for you lined up tomorrow," he said.

       Quistis blinked, and then nodded acceptingly.

       "You're the Headmaster, whatever you say goes.  That means you are resuming command, right?"

       Cid shifted his spectacles and nodded in agreement.

       "I am going to reassert my authority here in Balamb Garden," he answered with finality.

       Quistis held both hands behind her back, not sure whether or not Squall would like that.  While it didn't seem like he warmed overwhelming to responsibility, he wouldn't take too kindly to  being demoted either.

       "But," Cid continued, brushing some stray piece of hair off his best-looking red vest, "I have something bigger planned for SeeD.  I want Squall to go supervise the new SeeDs and Garden trainees in Trabia Garden."

       Quistis raised her eyebrows, caught off guard.  She hadn't even thought about the remnants of Trabia since the missiles from Galbadia demolished it.

       "Does Selphie know about this?" Quistis asked, gathering her thoughts again.

       Cid nodded and informed her that Selphie would be overseeing the 12 construction teams.  It was a massive project trying to build a new Garden with brand new designs in a matter of weeks.  Luckily they had some funding from some Shumi patrons.

       "We were lucky to have Esthar move all those energy cells that responded to the Lunatic Pandora weapon into Trabia.  It should save us a pretty Gil," Cid muttered. 

       "Why did you want to see me about this?" Quistis asked, fidgeting in her tight, pink skirt.

       "You're still the most experienced SeeD I have.  I need you to keep an eye on Squall because I won't be there.  I have no doubt that he always makes the best judgment, but he tends to respond better to an environment more populated by his peers.  I just don't want him withdrawing deeper into his world of seclusion," Cid explained.

       Quistis gave a sign of acknowledgement, and then asked if she should notify Zell and Irvine.

       Cid shook his head, saying, "No, they'll be needed for a different mission.  I'm sending them on diplomatic affairs in Shumi to make sure the Gil flow continues, as well as check out four geographically spread sites in relatively isolated areas and investigate some atmospheric abnormalities that have been reported."

       Quistis frowned, her training unable to suppress her instinctive reaction.  She didn't think that diplomacy was the right task to ask of either impulsive young men, and she told Cid that.

       "That's the funniest part," Cid replied with his "I'm proud of myself" look.

       Quistis noted that Headmaster Kramer had a sick sense of humor and pitied his wife.  Deciding that the conversation was over, she nodded more artificially than she needed to, excused herself, and then went off to find Squall.

       "I still don't understand why you were so adamant about turning in your resignation notice as SeeD instructor," Cid sighed, even though Quistis was already out of hearing range.

       Not seeing Squall anywhere, Quistis decided to walk past Irvine, wildly videotaping everything, and towards the table where Zell was in a feeding frenzy.

_       Surely he must know where Squall is, she thought._

       Stopping only to compliment Edea on how wonderful she looked tonight, Quistis got to the table about the same time as frolicking Selphie appeared out of nowhere.  Somehow she had wrenched away Irvine's trademark hat and was wearing it with his usual slim yellow outfit.

       Zell was furiously cramming down as many of the jealously coveted Garden hotdogs as he could.  His girlfriend was begging him to chew more and eat less but either it seemed a good idea to pay attention to her later or try to impress her by gorging himself even more, he continued his rare feast.  Quistis caught a bit of what Zell's girlfriend went on to tell him.  Something about her having to leave for Galbadia on an anti-Malboro campaign the following morning.  Zell seemed totally unaffected by her news, but he also must have completely misunderstood her because he wished her good luck for her dance competition.  Yet, with all the hotdogs stuffed in his mouth, which made him look like a moogle with hives, his words came out as coherently as a moogle would have spoken them.

_       That's odd, Quistis thought, frowning, _I thought Zell's girlfriend was a blonde Balamb girl.  Who is this pig-tailed brunette in the Garden outfit?__

       "Hey, Zell," Quistis called from across the table, "do you know where Squall is?"

       Zell had seen Quistis coming, and whether he actually heard what she asked him and tried to say, "With Rinoa," or he mistook her question for "Why were you downloading Rinoa screen-savers from the Garden tutorial?" and wanted to answer, "Not of Rinoa," his reply came out as "wruffa wuffferra."  He found out that more went in than came out, immediately choking and spewing out bits of half-macerated hotdog all over.  Some landed on his girlfriend's black Garden uniform, and even though she knew that those hotdog bits were not juicy enough to stain her skirt, even if it had been a color on which a stain would be noticeable, she screamed and jumped out of her seat.

       Quistis had already guessed that answer, and was wondering why he even bothered to give such a useless reply.  She found it a good time to make some chit-chat and get to know Zell's new companion while they were all huddled around him.  Selphie, in the meantime, after making fun of his girlfriend's pigtail hair-style, possibly because she was jealous of the hair's length, leaned down and with thick, artificial tenderness, asked Zell if he was going to rechew the pieces of food that he had spit out on the table.  Zell was desperately looking for a mouthful of milk, but his empty glass did not refill itself and he had to force down the rest of his dry meal by himself.  Selphie's comment didn't sit well with him so he jumped up, knocking over his chair, and frightened all the ladies away.

       Irvine had zoomed in on these four for awhile now, so he was quite surprised when Zell threw a leftover hotdog at him.  He wasn't use to handling laughing and being startled at the same time so he dropped the camcorder.  The look on Selphie's face was enough to make his heart sink and his face apple red.  He had already chaffed her by focusing on those three underclasswomen, so he didn't think this was helping his standing with her.

       "T-there's no problem!  No problem," he stammered, picking it up and brushing it off as quickly as possible.  He took a cautious peek over at Selphie.  She had one of those "There-had-better-not-be-a-problem" look on, with her hands on her hips…Irvine lost his thought when he saw those hips…

       "Hey!" Selphie shouted at him, bringing him back to reality with a jolt.

       "Nothing wrong at all," he assured her, giving his best "Just-pretend-you-didn't-see-that-cheesehead-move-of-mine" smile.

       "Smooth, real smooth, Irvine," he muttered to himself.

       Selphie was still glaring at him.  She suddenly made alternating circular motions with her hands, shouting at him, "Well, keep it rolling!"

       Embarrassed, Irvine fumbled about with the controls, trying not to look at Selphie's half-exasperated, half-annoyed facial expression that he knew she was sporting.

       "That klutz," she thought to herself critically.  She turned away in disgust and found herself looking through the archway leading to the open balcony.  Suddenly she noticed her dark-haired girl friend with her usual blue skirt and black shorts on.

       _How does Rinoa get her skin to glisten like that?_ she wondered enviously.

       Catching a glimpse of Squall around the corner, Selphie smiled at the thought that this might be the perfect time for their diffident team leader to make a move on Rinoa.  Selphie caught Irvine aiming the video camera at her again with her peripheral vision, and so turned and motioned for him to zoom in on Rinoa shooting the breeze.  Irvine adjusted his view accordingly, but was at the wrong angle to catch any part of Squall on tape.

       "What's up with Selphie?" he thought to himself, feeling his hands almost slip off the precious equipment before grumbling, "First she chews me out for looking at girls, and now she wants me to get an eyeful of Rinoa."

       Quistis caught up with Selphie just as Squall moved fully into view from where they were standing.  Rinoa had pointed at something outside and apparently that was incentive enough for Squall to lean in, take her in his arms and snatch a deep kiss long since reserved for him.  Not expecting to find Squall in that position, Quistis held her breath as Selphie cupped her hands over her mouth and squealed in delight.

       "Long live the Tonberry King!" she shouted, following it up with, "Squall finally got on first base!"

       Quistis remembered to inhale.

       Irvine came up to them, asking them what all the commotion was about.

       Selphie just stared at him in disbelief for a second, leaving just enough time for little cowboy Kinneas to wonder what he had done wrong now.

       "You didn't get any of that?" Selphie shrieked.

       Irvine's surprise was turning rapidly into fear.

       "The batteries ran out," he appealed, figuring that the truth would save him.

       Obviously Irvine had forgotten that things worked differently in their fantastically warped, little community and as a result, Quistis ended up catching the camcorder that he threw in the air as he sped away from a charging Selphie, fork in hand and close in pursuit.

       Quistis passed the camcorder between her hands, wondering how to approach Squall now.  It seemed like she had definitely lost him now.  After all, he and Rinoa were still on the same kiss.  Flustered, Quistis looked away, her eyes finding their way back to Zell's table.  It was empty now, his girlfriend having gone home early, and Zell nowhere to be seen.  Something caught her eye and she took a step closer.

       There was a piece of paper on the seat.  Quistis walked over and picked it up.  "Silly girl, she must have left it," Quistis thought, turning it over.  _What was her name again?  Mina*?_

       *Raine Ishida (nanaki_17@hotmail.com)

           has a sequel to my saga and in that work

           "Hope," like others, she includes Mina. __

       It was a new photograph of Mina and some guy who Quistis thought was pretty cute and had a face that was awfully familiar.  She dismissed it as one of those faces that naturally just seemed that way, like the ones those two brothers operating the elevators at Fisherman's Horizon had.  Without giving the snapshot another thought, she looked around for Zell.

       She saw him saunter thoughtlessly right into Squall and Rinoa's kiss off.  He caught himself halfway through the act, and cupped his eyes with his palm in dire embarrassment.  Squall had pulled away just as Zell came up to them and based on her facial expression, Rinoa was not going to forgive the bumbling fool.

       "Poor Zell," Quistis thought, racing over next to Zell in a position optimal for shielding him from any Blaster-edge attacks.

       The best line Zell could dish out was, "Um, I hope I'm not interrupting anything important."

       Squall said that it was nothing.  The unfortunate response merited, in Zell's opinion, one of the dirtiest looks that a pretty Heartilly face could dish out, a shove from Rinoa, and her storming away from the balcony back into the party.  Squall looked like someone caught with his shorts down.

_       What? he shouted in his head.  _Was it something I said?__

       Quistis having heard the nauseating exchange, quickly handed the photograph to Zell, told him about his coming ambassadorship, relayed Cid's message to Squall with a glare, and ran off to comfort Rinoa.

_       What did I do? he asked after seeing Quistis' look._

       Zell, apparently very excited about his new mission, raised his fist triumphantly in the air, forgetting all about the embarrassing situation they were in.  His cheering and victory dance was compounded with some in-place shadow-boxing.  Still holding the picture as he wiggled through a tight four-punch combination, it was perfectly visible after his uppercut.  Exactly what the picture meant took awhile to register.  Squall didn't notice Zell's abrupt break in his string of war hoots and jabs.

       "W-Where did Mina say she was going?" Zell asked shakily.

_       Who? Squall asked silently, barely listening to him.  __The only Mina in my recollection is that exotic dancer from the club in Esthar._

       Zell saw his clueless face.

       "The assistant librarian?  You know, my girlfriend?" Zell repeated, more frantically this time.

_       I thought your girlfriend was that blonde chick in Balamb?  Did you find yourself a SeeD, Zell? Squall wondered, lifting his eyebrows and for a rare instant, betraying his apathetic mold. _

       "S-she went home to pack, didn't she?" Zell reasoned aloud, voice wavering. 

_       How should I know? Squall thought immediately, realizing that he had to verbalize it just as he was about to look away._

       "How should I know?" Squall grumbled, disturbed more by Rinoa's reaction to what he said than how Zell had barged in.  He would not notice Zell as he scrambled off to catch his girlfriend.

       Left alone, Squall rested his elbows on the balcony railing.  Closing his eyes, he tried to let his mind go blank, and his spirit free from any anxiety.  He was bombarded by confusion, disgust, and resentment.

_       Why is this happening to me?  Why isn't Irvine or Zell out here with a migraine?_

       "Who could understand Rinoa anyway?" he asked aloud accidentally.

       He considered the facts.  _She isn't even a SeeD.  Why is she making me so nervous sometimes and upset at other times?  Tonight definitely qualifies as one of those confounding second type of times._

       It just didn't make sense to him what exactly Rinoa wanted from him.  _Does she actually expect me to say and do everything she wants?  Does she want my soul?  Doesn't she like me because she understands me?  And if she does understand me, why does she want me to change?  Why doesn't she just excuse me for who I am?_

       It annoyed him to feel like he needed an excuse to be himself.  Squall went on to question whether it was possible to give his soul out so simply.  _It just doesn't seem worth it.  I can save her from fire and ice, but how much more am I expected to sacrifice?  And why does she need me to show her all these sacrifices?  It's irrational.  Rinoa is irrational._

       Squall considered Rinoa's bright, happy-go-lucky personality, and finally made the connection between her person and her unreasonable demands.  It was just because she was that capricious.  _True, she is a pleasure to be around sometimes, but if she is going to turn into a Wendigo every few minutes and make everyone uncomfortable, then she isn't worth it.  Besides, I think she just gave up on me._

_       If this is what you end up raising with the best environment that Gil can buy and the most orderly tutelage an army can provide, a spoiled, fickle brat who hands out headaches to everyone in her path, then I want nothing to do with it, he concluded decisively._

       Just to bolster his reasoning, he added, _It's not like SHE jumped into space to save ME_.

       Squall looked at the moon for a bit longer before reaching in his pocket and pulling out a rolled baby Malboro tentacle from his cigarette case.

       "Ifrit," he whispered.

       The fiery, horned, dark-skinned Guardian Force appeared beside his master before Squall could finish pronouncing his name.

       "Master?" he growled hungrily.

       Squall held out the Malboro tentacle roll nonchalantly.  Ifrit brushed the end of the roll with his paw and watched it spark to life at the touch of his flinty skin.

       "Do you want my opinion?" the monstrous GF offered.

       _You're still here?  No, of course I don't want your opinion.  If I wanted your opinion, don't you think I would have asked for it, you dumb ox?_

       "No," Squall answered without taking his eyes off the moon.

       "I didn't mean about the girl," Ifrit clarified.  "I meant about the cigarette.  It's not good for you."

       _I know what you meant._

       Had Squall cared enough, he would have shot back a look smacking of "I don't care."

       _I'll pretend I didn't hear you.  Maybe you'll go away.  Hopefully this time you'll take that sulfur stench away with you._

       After a moment, when Ifrit was still there, he said, "You can go now," waving the GF off.

       Ifrit bowed and petered out in a wisp of smoke as fast as he had come, leaving Squall to himself, staring at the myriad of tiny waves, tugging against each other to see who could steal a ray from the moon and shimmer for just that one second.

_       I don't want to think about anything now.  Just rest here and pretend that none of this ever happened.  I wish it didn't.  I'd still be fencing in the courtyard everyday, I wouldn't know some irresponsible, indecisive loser who doesn't want me to be his son, I wouldn't have raised everyone's expectations of my actions, and I wouldn't have to feel inadequate every freaking five minutes around Rinoa._

       From behind him, Selphie's upbeat voice broke the silence.  Squall turned his gaze from the giant kaleidoscope below them to the yellow sprite that had thrown herself onto him.  He threw her off and asked her what was wrong with her.

       Selphie was too hyped up to mind.  She just heard the news that she was the head of the construction crews in Trabia.  After adjusting how Irvine's hat sat on her head, she slapped Squall on the back for his promotion to Headmaster and before he could turn and frown, slapped his arm and asked him what he did to Rinoa.  He shot her an annoyed but surprised look.

       "I didn't do anything," he defended himself.

       Selphie gave the ever omniscient smile.

       "Oh," she cooed, "is THAT the problem?"

       Squall scowled and told her that she did not know what she was talking about.

       "Squall's so cute when he's growing up," she continued to tease before he decided it would waste less energy by quitting the view and leaving the balcony to her.

       "Oh, Commander," she added, knowing that the title would make him stiffen, "the President of Esthar left a message for you earlier today."

       Doing her best imitation of a sonorous male voice Selphie grunted, "Squall, son, you might want to check it out."

       While making his exit, Squall did stiffen at the title, but the hair on his neck bristled at the mention of his father.

       As seductively as possible, she called after him, "Rinoa's so cute when she's asleep, Squall, but you wouldn't know that, would you?"

       "No," he yelled back flatly, "I wouldn't!"

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	9. Setting 06: 1730 DAY 12, Trabia Heath Pe...

Setting 06: 1730 DAY 12, Trabia Heath Peninsula Island 

_"'But now reach out your hand; open my eyes.'_

_And yet I did not open them for him;_

_And it was courtesy to show him rudeness."_

-Alighieri, Dante

_Inferno XXXIII_

       _"T_his has to be the stupidest mission I've ever been on," Zell muttered aloud.

       Had he known that staring at the clouds for one and a half weeks was what Headmaster Cid meant by "checking atmospheric conditions," he would have kicked Irvine out of the _Ragnarok_ and taken his girlfriend instead.  The thought of Mina shut him up.

       Remembering that this was Irvine's first official mission as a salaried SeeD, he reasoned that it was by default the stupidest mission Irvine had ever been on as well.  The consistency in opinion about their assignment further convinced Zell of how right he was.

       "I think I see Venus!" Zell shouted suddenly, jumping up and down.

       Irvine nodded hastily, concentrating more on what he was doing then listening to Zell's raving.

       _Damn you two little stones!_

       Zell still hadn't removed the binoculars from his eyes.

       "Come on, trench coat boy," he goaded, "pay up."

       Irvine was getting more frustrated.

       _Damn you two little stones!_

       Still gazing at Venus, Zell snickered at Irvine's failed attempts at starting a fire with his flint.  Not that it mattered since he was the first to spot anything spectacular in the last eleven days.  _Irvine owes me so much Gil…I have it made!_

       Visibly upset by how things were going with the flint, he got up and hurled the rocks at Zell.  He was glad that his target still hadn't removed the binoculars because there was no way he would have been able to guess that Irvine was a professional sharpshooter based on how often he missed.

       Irvine regained his composure, dusted himself off gallantly, then proceeded to pull out his rifle, load two rounds of Fire Ammo, and blasted the foliage amidst his ring of stones to bloody Ifrit.  Coolly he blew away the smoke coming out of his gun, and put his free hand on his hip as if he were posing for a picture.  He lifted his head and scoffed haughtily at the little flames he incited, flashing his best "Yeah, you know who's all that, you know who's the bad-ass" smirk.  Starting to sway in his victory dance, Irvine hummed to himself, "Who's your daddy?  I am.  Who's your daddy?  It's me.  Don't you know it?  I'm Irvine…"

       _What is with him and his marshmallows anyway?  Aren't they just flour and sugar?  Zell wondered.  _And why was he so obstinate about having them toasted the traditional way?  _Had he taken a moment to look at the little unconscious jig Irvine was doing, there would definitely be no limit to how much Zell could have blackmailed the cowboy for._

       Irvine finally remembered why Zell was so excited.  He gave the fire his last "That ought to teach you a listen" glare and turned to his eyes towards the hyped up pugilist.

       "What did you say?" he asked.

       "I said," Zell pronounced extra clearly through his grin, "you're going to owe me so much Gil that I won't need my SeeD pay for a year!"

       Irvine spit on the ground, undaunted.

       "You wanna double that wager, Zelda?" he teased, intent on irking Zell in return for the last week and a half of suffering his companion's presence had imparted on him.

       Zell was in too good a mood to be peeved by such a low-class attempt at knocking his masculinity.  "Multiplication _increases the amount, genius," he retorted, "but I guess they'll teach you that next week."_

       "So three times the wager, then," was Irvine's answer.

       Zell shrugged, saying, "It's your Gil."

_       So this assignment does__ have its perks.  This is a dream come true, Zell thought gleefully._

       "If you're trying to appeal to my conscience, don't bother.  I'm not giving any of this Gil back," Zell cautioned, still gazing through his binoculars.

       "You know, Zell," Irvine began, "if you had _half_ the brain I had, you'd be rich."

       "How's that?  _Half of your wealth?  No thanks, jolly rancher fruity," Zell returned._

       Turning slightly red, but still able to endure it, Irvine continued, "Well, you're going to be twice as sorry, now.  How 'bout we raise the stakes to loser loses a hand?"

       Zell paused, but with him sighting Venus first, he saw nothing to worry about.  _Irvine must have had a hemorrhage or something…I am going too far, taking advantage of him while he's mentally unstable_? he wondered.  _Still, it's safer to restrain myself_.

       "What are you going to do with one hand?" Zell countered.  "Think about it, Irvine, you only have two."

       "I don't need but half of my appendages operational to shoot you dead," Irvine boasted.

       Zell put his binoculars aside, turning on Irvine with a nasty scowl.  _This_ was about his skills as a fighter now.  The conversation had strayed away from the bank and into the arena.

       "I could whoop you with one hand tied behind my back right now.  Hell, I'll even close one eye, hot shot!" he sneered angrily.

       "I could take your head off with half a gun!" Irvine bragged.

       "Ha!  Some sniper _you are," Zell growled at Irvine who just threw his hat on the ground.  "We hired you __once and you can't even hit the open target _half _the time!"_

       Irvine was steaming now.

       "It's on now, hotdog trash bucket," he spewed, "we'll make the wager both hands."

       Zell was beyond restraint so he hastily agreed.  _We'll see who is afraid of whom_.

       Irvine smirked triumphantly.  _That smug idiot, doesn't even suspect it…_

       "See," he taunted, "this _proves_ that you only have half a brain, nimrod!  You can't chop off your second hand yourself!" 

       "That doesn't change the fact that I'll still beat you to a pulp!" Zell yelled back.

       "Forget that wager, then, chicken," he taunted, before suggesting, "If you lose, you can't sneak upstairs to the study hall and tour the online tutorial for any more Rinoa screen-savers."

       Irvine pointed at something behind Zell while he thought about the new consequence, and then handed Zell the binoculars just as the boxer remembered to protest Irvine's slander that carried some ugly insinuations.

       "Look again, space boy," he jeered, "where's your Venus now?"

       Zell made a face back, rudely snatched the binoculars from Irvine, and looked through them again."

       "See that red thing over there?  The first interesting thing we've seen in weeks.  Pay up, loser," he gloated.

       "I had to turn a few gears in my head, but I can't believe how great my idea was!" Zell shouted, pumping his fist in the air, beaming with pride.  "All I had to do to win the bet was whip out the binoculars and spot things farther than you can see."

       Laughing, he clapped his hands together before pumping both fists.

       "Zell, you get a pat on the back for this one," he said to himself, bringing the binoculars to his eyes for another look at his treasure.  "What can I say?  I'm a genius."

       Irvine tapped the lens and rapped Zell on the head, inducing him to go into a fighting stance and initiate a few jabs.  Irvine grabbed the binoculars and turned them around.

       "I don't know if they taught you this in grade school, but most people look through it _this _way," Irvine said flatly.  "That red thing you saw would be the _Ragnarok_."

       Zell's jaw dropped four inches before he helped it back up with his hand.

       _Impossible!  Backwards?  There is no way this happening to me! he bemoaned._

       "Great idea with the binoculars, partner," Irvine rubbed in.  "What can I say?  You're_ a genius."_

       "B-but it was red!" he sputtered, refusing to believe his egregious error.

       "Was color recognition your _only_ qualification to pass the SeeD test at Balamb Garden?" Irvine questioned.

       Zell was too embarrassed to mumble anything except, "I know I saw Venus!"

       Irvine lifted his hands above his head, shouting, "In broad daylight!  Are you mad?"

       "Did you not know to look through the smaller lenses, Zell?" Irvine pressed on after regaining his composure.  "Or maybe they'll teach you that in school next week."

       "Okay, okay, I get the point," Zell conceded grudgingly, "but that doesn't mean you win."

       "No," Irvine agreed, "but it will make a hilarious story to tell at dinner parties for years to come."

       Zell paled at the thought.  _Not again.  _Stupid, so stupid of you, Zell_.  __There is no way out of this one.  Better change the subject before he thinks of other ways to rag on me._

       "All right, maybe I _wanted _to see something, _anything_ out of the ordinary so badly that I made it up?  Is that okay?" Zell said, feigning a confession.

       Irvine thought about it, still shaking with laughter, but didn't add anything else.  _Come on, buy it, buy it, Zell repeated in his head._

       Seeing as how he had no more quips left to dish out, Irvine finally shrugged and agreed that they got stuck with a stupid mission.  A thought suddenly struck him and he lit up like a bulb.  _I still have a bag of marshmallows left!  Better stop wasting time and tend to them_.

       Irvine crouched down and started kindling the small flames, nearly extinguished because he hadn't fed the fire during their bickering.  _Damn little stones, but thank Eden for Fire Ammo_, he beamed.

       Zell was horror-struck.  _Sometimes, I just don't understand him._

       "Irvine, how can you sit there all day long toasting those stupid powder puffs?" he asked, exasperated.  "I mean, couldn't you at least roast some chicobos or something tasty?"

       "Shut up and keep your eyes open.  You might find something," Irvine chuckled.

       "Hey," Zell protested, "why shouldn't you be paying attention to this mission?  We're both responsible for a satisfactory report, you know?"

       "I don't think Cid's going to be satisfied with anything after how you handled those negotiations at Shumi Village," Irvine assessed.

       Zell spun around, nostrils flaring.

       "Don't shift the blame to me, you rooftop weasel!  I wasn't the one who stepped over the chain and sat on the Elder's pre-made coffin thinking it was a bench," Zell shouted, pointing a finger accusingly at Irvine.

       Irvine ignored the comment, saying, "Let's go back a few days in time, shall we?  What kind of idiot ambassador would drink from the sanctified reception pan?"

       Zell held up his hands in defense.  "They offered it to me!"

       "To wash your fingers, monkey-brains!" Irvine rejoined.  "Do you know how many generations of consecrating and reconsecrating that pan you've destroyed?"

       _Not to mention how upset you made the Moomba when it spilled on his tail._

       "How was I supposed to know?" Zell hollered penitently.  "I don't know any Shumi customs!  I don't refer to myself in third person!  And I don't identify myself by my profession!"

       "And you obviously didn't see how every officer there dipped their fingers or flippers into the holy water," Irvine reminded him.

       Zell frowned.  _Stupid, so stupid of you, Zell.  _Just like that time you gave away Garden's name in front of the cameras at Timber.__

       "I can see the announcement to all the Trabia Garden workers now," Irvine continued, framing the image he saw before him with his hands, "Balamb Garden student Zell Dincht unilaterally brings all Nova Trabia Garden construction funding to a halt."

       "Whoa, hold your horses, cowboy," Zell pressed.  "Just remember you where you tossed all your empty marshmallow bags.  I'm sure the Nest Mother was thrilled that you thought her baby cradle was fit to be a wastebasket." 

       "That _was_ stupid," Irvine admitted, "but nothing compared to what you did to the Artisan's hut, smart guy.  Can you even imagine how many years he's worked at the request of the entire village on Laguna's statue, that same one that was crushed by the ceiling?  You'd better hope they send the next month's credit instead of the repair bill or Cid will hang us both."

       "At least we got out of there with our heads still attached to our necks," Zell said hastily.

       "You have to give the Shumi credit for their intelligence," Irvine went on.  "After all, they finally did figure out that kicking Zell out as soon as possible would be the best way to save Gil."

_       Actually, Irvine contemplated after reconsidering, _if they were _really _bright, they would have killed us to protect their investment in Trabia…Eden knows what Zell could do to the new Garden's foundations if he had leveled the Artisan's hut on accident.__

       Zell frowned, crossed with their situation and annoyed that the elevator taking them back up to the surface and out of the village seemed to move a lot faster than the initial trip down into the village.__

       Irvine licked his lips hungrily, only paying attention to not overcooking his snack.  His partner looked over at him, half-annoyed at his disconcerting fetish for marshmallows.

       "I still can't believe you put together so many bonfires.  Do you know how it's a capital offense in some of those districts to start a brushfire even on accident?" Zell asked.

       "Every place we went to there was always someone who had done it there before I did.  I was just following their example," Irvine pointed out.

       "One burnt patch of grass does _not_ make the entire frigid field a marshmallow-toasting reservation!" Zell practically screamed.

       "Nobody seemed to mind on Mandy Beach or in the middle of Kashkabald Desert.  There wasn't any danger of starting brushfires in those places," Irvine offered. 

       "Nobody toasts marshmallows on the beach or in the desert, that's the _point!  It therefore can't be a federally sanctioned marshmallow-warming site, just like this can't be," Zell shouted._

       Not content with standing around impatiently while Irvine was enjoying his favorite pastime, Zell was just itching to add, "How many packs have you eaten today?"

       Instead, he tried, "Look what you've done for the fourth time!"

       His eyes a bit tired of the sporadically glistening sparks, Irvine finally took the time look up away from his business and inspect the ground around him.  Zell crossed his arms and stood back with a self-satisfied air.  They were standing in the middle of a field littered with burnt patches of grass left by Irvine's random blazing.

       Shrugging and squatting back down, Irvine assured Zell, "This is the last bag, which means we'll have to head back soon and restock.  We've been out here too long and we haven't come up with anything new.  Sooner or later they're going to start wondering where we are since the Shumi flop was happened last Monday."

       Zell threw his hands up in the air, yelling, "Get with the program!  We can't go back!  We flunked this mission, doofus.  We have nothing, after eleven days, to report.  Nothing at all!"

       Zell held up his hands by Irvine's face and wiggled his fingers, whispering, "Nothing."

       After some consideration, Irvine suggested, "You know, if you lightened up a bit, you'd realize that Cid thought enough of us to let us check out all the marshmallow-toasting grounds rather than all the mosquito-breeding farms."

       Zell glowered, reflecting bitterly, _Yeah, right.  Cid thought enough of me to team me up with Irvine instead of any of the girls._

       "You're not helping our cause," Zell said after a moment.  "Should we pack up and head for the hills?"

       "What?  And leave the _Ragnarok_ here?  I think not," Irvine scoffed.

       Zell pondered over Irvine's suggestion.

       "You're right," he decided after a moment.  "There would be nowhere to hide the ship."

       Irvine laughed, but quieted himself when he saw Zell's pupils widen in agitation.

       "Or," Irvine said slowly, "we could try what we _should_ do…GO….BACK."

       "Don't you get it?" Zell hollered, unable to contain himself.  "We have nothing to report!"

_       "We could tell them the intelligence we gathered from Laguna," Irvine proposed._

       Zell had turned bright red.

       "Hand it over, Irvine," he ordered, "whatever you're using that's affecting your judgment.  I'm not kidding." 

       Irvine held up his hands worriedly.

       "I'm not high on anything, Zell," he stammered.

       "Think about it, bullet-brain," Zell told him.  "If you tell Squall about any of Laguna's 'I'm going to be that father figure that he never had' stuff, Squall will flip out.  If you tell Cid about what Laguna said about the cow missing from Winhill, Cid will flip out.  We're supposed to be monitoring the weather, remember?  We have _nothing _to report!"

       Irvine scratched his head, shifting his hat ever so slightly.  Apparently even the tiniest bit of jostling was enough incentive for Irvine to carefully adjust his headwear back into its original position instead of offering a solution, much to the annoyance of his company.

       Zell could feel the hot vapor jetting out of his ears.  _That stupid hat of his.  He's been fiddling with it for a minute and it still looks like it's in the same place.  It's just like Rinoa combing her hair._

       "We could tell Cid about Mr. Monkey," Irvine suggested after he was done moving his hat around.  

       Zell checked to make sure he heard right, then checked to see if his partner was being sarcastic.  He'd heard correctly, and there was no sarcasm.  Zell's immediate reaction was to kick some sand in Irvine's direction.  _Do you know how retarded you sound!?_

       "He'll have us demoted 27 levels to a Lv 4 SeeD!" he cried.  "What the Ifrit are you thinking?"

       "Intelligence is intelligence," Irvine piped happily.  _Whether or not it actually sounds intelligent is moot._

       Zell rubbed his temples before responding, "Irvine, you have none and we have none.  You know, I can't believe you couldn't even find the right shore.  How in Terra did you mistake Obel Lake for Mandy Beach?"

       Irvine colored slightly.

       "So I couldn't tell the difference between the compass north and true north.  At least we didn't wander too far from Timber," he said, tipping his hat apologetically.  _What are you going to do?  Shoot me?_

_       "And to think you actually had a conversation with that sea monster," Zell scorned._

       Irvine shook his head.

       "I was just being polite," he explained.  "The least we could do was help him find Mr. Monkey."

       "Do you know how crazy that sounds?" Zell retorted.  "He probably just made that up so you'd stop humming and go away."

       "My humming was nothing compared to you chucking rocks into his lake," Irvine taunted.

       "Well," Zell blustered, "in case you didn't notice, I was trying to drive him _away from the shore, not to attract his attention like _some_ raving idiots I know, who shall remain nameless…IRVINE!!!"_

       In his mind though, Zell was actually starting to regret not helping that sea creature out.  At least then some good would have come out of the trip.

       _Had we actually gone to Dollet or leafed through the entire forest and found that fur ball, this wouldn't have been a total waste of our time.  Now Cid's going to string us up and feed us to the Blobras in the training center._

_       "We have zilch to report then," Zell huffed._

       Irvine smiled, lifting the stick with his browned marshmallow from the fire.

       "Well," he put forth, "as my mom used to say, 'If you have nothing to report, you should at least have something in your stomach.'"

       "You just made that up!" Zell shouted.

       Irvine shrugged.  _So maybe I did.  __What are you going to do?  Shoot me?_

       Irvine snickered at the thought, and offered, "It could be worst."  _Dammit, Irvine…knock on wood._

       Zell had already put his binoculars away and was packing the rest of the camp up.  Irvine looked up and asked what he was doing.

       "You got the keys?" Zell asked, brushing off the question.

       "I thought you had them," Irvine replied honestly.

       "Hey, that's funny," Zell played along, but resumed the straight face.  "No, it's not.  You were the last one driving, so what did you do with them?"

       Irvine had stopped fanning off his steamy marshmallow, sensing imminent trouble.

       "I don't have them, see?" he said, patting his pockets.

       Zell could feel himself freaking out.  He tried to jump around and release all the anger in him that wanted to blow its way out.  _It was a given that the show-off driver would not have a sense of direction and would get lost, but I didn't think the keys would too._

       "Irvine," he said so calmly that it worried the addressee, "remind me again why we even need the keys to pilot the fingerprint-scan-initiated _Ragnarok_?"

       Irvine tried to swallow before answering, but either his mouth was too dry or the swelling lump in his throat was blocking the passage.

       "Laguna had the Esthar mechanics modify it to key-ignition mode because he was afraid we might burn off the skin on our fingers while toasting marshmallows."

       Zell's face froze for a second before he let out a series of profanities that called the name of every GF.  He was breathing hard by the time he finished, muttering to himself, "The irony is sickening."

       _That's the result of years of suppressing your feelings right there, Irvine thought, lifting both eyebrows.  _I wonder if Squall's outburst would be stronger than a dose of Omega Weapon's Terra Break_._

_       Zell took a deep breath, letting the anger flow out of him._

       "Irvine," he said, "start crawling around and look for them.  I'll go search every inch of the ship."

       Irvine was about to argue that it was unfair since there was more surface area to cover on the field than in the ship, but he wisely held his tongue.  As Zell hurried off, Irvine threw his marshmallow aside with a sigh, and looked sadly at the turf around him.

       "It's not in the ignition, Zell, if that's where you're heading first," Irvine called after him.

_       We'll probably all laugh at this someday in the future, he comforted himself, only half-convinced._

       Not encouraged by the sight of Zell tripping on the edge of the _Ragnarok_'s loading ramp, Irvine shook his head.  _Who am I kidding?_

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	10. Setting 07: 1417 DAY 15, Nova Trabia Gar...

Setting 07: 1417 DAY 15, Nova Trabia Garden Basketball Courts 

_"I am become a name;_

_for always roaming with a hungry heart_

_much have I seen and known – cities of men_

_and drunk delight of battle with my peers."_

-Tennyson, Alfred Lord

"Ulysses" 11

       _"R_inoa!  Yo!  What's up!"

       That cry surprised Quistis as she was walking across the basketball courts.  She considered not stopping, but turned to see who was calling for Rinoa anyway.  _It's not like they're calling for me, so why am I stopping?  she asked herself.  __But I could have sworn Rinoa told me that she was going to stay in Balamb for two weeks to let things settle in Trabia before coming._

       A few sweaty underclassmen ran up to where she stood, looking her over in a manner anything but subtle.

       "Hey, Rinoa," they said amiably, "wanna play a game with us?"

       _They must be talking past me.  Better check._

       Quistis looked behind her to make sure Rinoa wasn't standing right there, and then realized that she was being eyed by at least ten hormone-charged young men.  Looking around, she saw at least three other games had stopped to gawk at her.  She wasn't sure whether to be flattered or offended.

       _I think you have the wrong person._

       She heard some shoving, a few "oohs," "ahhs" and whispering.  Someone passed a word of caution, "Watch it fellas'.  That's Squall's girlfriend.  You'd better be careful."  The guys dismissed it casually.

       Quistis liked the sound of that and repeated it to herself.

       _That's Squall's girlfriend.  You'd better be careful._

       "Hey, Rinoa," a guy off to the right chimed in, "when did you dye your hair blonde?  I thought it was black."

       _He called me Rinoa._

       "Yeah," another player added, "but it still looks great."

       _That guy called me Rinoa._

       "Yo, Rinoa," another one called, "Squall's not here right now.  Do you want me to show you the ropes?"

       Quistis was coloring, and she knew it.  She wanted to make a grab at her whip and teach a few of them to watch their mouth, but she knew better.  _Have to control myself.  You used to be an instructor.  It doesn't look good on your report to have slaughtered a team of Garden basketball players._

       "Hey, I think we have her flustered," shouted someone standing in front of the growing crowd.  "See?  She's shaking all over."

       _Maybe switching down to a size 2 today wasn't the best idea ever._

       There were hoots and some jeers followed by a torrent of pick-up lines.  It was then that  Quistis realized how just how precarious it was to leave her curvaceous little frame sitting in a sea of testosterone.  But a part of her kind of envied Rinoa as she moved away.  Or so she thought.  She heard some disappointed groans behind her, but it was soon drowned out by the jostling of feet.  It was painfully loud since nearly all of the games had been halted just to ogle at her.

       Quistis turned around again and saw that the distance between the front line and her had closed, despite the steps she had taken in retreat.  _Looks like there is no way out of this one except the hard way_.

       There were some pretty lusty offers being openly thrown out now, as well as some dirty talking.  She wasn't sure what the best way to handle the situation was.  Unlike at Balamb Garden, where all her devoted "Trepies" would only talk about her behind her back and dream about her when she wasn't looking at them, there was no such docile fan club here.  They also didn't realize here at Trabia Garden Quistis outranked them even if she didn't have her instructor status anymore, and that she could have ended their miserable lives if she felt the need to do it.  But as it was, no one was there to hold them back, and she had to re-evaluate being jealous of Rinoa before taking off in a mad dash to the far side of the court where there was at least one other game still going on.

       Abruptly she stopped, realizing that she had made the wrong choice and now faced a corridor that led to the men's locker room.  _Dammit!  Diablos take you, girl!  Cornered!_

_       There seemed to be no alternative so she reached for her whip as they closed in.  In another second their hands would be all over her.  She grimaced._

       "Rinoa!  There you are!" some masculine voice shouted from the back.

       For some reason, everyone stopped and took a step back as cookie-inclined six-year-olds do when they're caught red-handed.  Quistis stood on the tips of her toes, but she couldn't see who had addressed "Rinoa."  The voice didn't sound like Zell or Irvine's.  It had to be Squall's.

       There was a lot of pushing and complaining as the owner of the voice made his way to the front.  Suddenly a group of students in the center of the multitude fell cried out in pain and fell to their feet.  There was definitely a scuffle going on, and the ring of students that fell grew larger.  Obviously the stranger had decided that it was quicker to fight his way to the front than to weave through the swarm of men.  Quistis wondered if her rescuer was Squall, and if he was, where did he learn hand-to-hand combat like that?

       Suddenly her protector took flight.  He wasn't retreating; rather he had used the back of one of the fallen students as a stepping-stone and was now running on top of the shoulders of everyone in front of him at an alarming speed.  Quistis, as well as all the onlookers, could hardly keep up with him as if their eyes could only see where he had been during his last step.  His person was a blur, stepping here and there while kicking every other head he passed, finally making a daring leap off the nose of one unfortunate soul whose face would forever bear his heavy print.

       Quistis did not realize how large the crowd had been until she saw the distance between where the man jumped and where he landed, three feet from her.  Immediately the crowd made room for their new guest.  Two meters seemed a safe distance from his flurry of kicks.

_       Holy Shiva, Quistis marveled, _he hasn't even broken a sweat_._

       The stranger dusted himself off.  Seeing Quistis, he brightened and ran over to her, beating back any of the extended hands that had frozen in place when he initially called out from the very back.

       Quistis had never seen this gentleman before, almost taking him for Squall judging by his voice and hair.  She hadn't been able to get a good view of his face while he was blur, but now she could see that while his eyes effected the same profoundly grave look, his mouth was shaped just a tad bit differently from Squall's.  _Who is this guy?_ she thought.

       He pushed her behind him and shouted back at the horde, "Get the Ifrit away from my girl, you underclassmen punks!"

       His voice and demeanor were equally frightening, shown by the unanimous decision of the crowd to back up another meter.  Either his earlier performance in the crowd had convinced them that Quistis was not worth the fight or every one of them understood that the ominous glimmer in his eyes meant that he was looking forward to actually killing someone.

_       Oh, to Diablos with it, Quistis thought.  She didn't have a choice anyway, so she grabbed on to the taller man's arm just to authenticate their mock-relationship.  He tensed up when she did it, making her wonder if she should let go, but the crowd seemed to buy what he said, so she didn't.  __If he didn't look so much like Squall, this probably wouldn't have worked since there is bound to be some people who have seen him.  _At least his color scheme matches, even though I've never seen Squall don a cloak.__

       There were murmurs coming from various members of the mass.  Half of the voices indicated that they believed him to be Squall.  Another part thought it would be in their best interests to make a run for it.  Everyone left over wanted to stay and see how this affair would end.  The wrapped one arm around Quistis for effect, he kept his sharp eyes on each and every movement.

       _This feels so warm._

       Upon realizing that she was actually starting to enjoy this, Quistis slapped herself mentally.  She would need to remind herself to follow it up with the physical equivalent at a more opportune time.

       "I'm Squall Leonhart, and I have a decision to make," the stranger declared evenly.  "As the commanding officer of SeeD, I can treat this incident as some pretty serious gang harassment, bring it to the attention of the Disciplinary Committee, and report every face that I've seen today to have you expelled from all the Gardens..."

       During his deliberately extended pause, most of those students who were in clear view either covered their faces or turned around, but no one was ready to leave the spectacle just yet.  Quistis herself, by nature a modest girl, was starting to wonder whether she was that desirable.

       "...or," the man continued, giving Quistis a quick pat on the head that would have effected a quick death blow _had_ this been a normal situation, "as an angry boyfriend, I can use this as the perfect excuse to wipe these basketball courts with your faces."

       The last line came out in a menacing growl, which dislodged a few of the front-runners from their places, to the surprise of Quistis.  The majority of the students were still unconvinced though.  Someone out of view mentioned that Rinoa wasn't even a SeeD.

       "And neither will any of you be if I have anything to do with your recruitment, which I do," the man barked back.

       Quistis was too impressed to close her eyes and fall asleep on his arm.  She was starting to feel like a little girl again, shaking off her respectable shell of maturity that had encased her since her promotion to SeeD instructor.

       "The way I see it," the stranger continued, "your best chance is to disappear as quickly as possible because I'm only going to give you until the count of five before you get to help me mop the court and paint the boards red."

       It was as fearsome a threat as it was effectual.  As the first count sounded, panic seized the students and they dispersed, the entire body making a quick 180 with the back trampling over the front in their race to get as far away from their Squall as they could in five seconds.

       For some reason, her bodyguard skipped the next three numbers, went directly to "5," and eluded her grasp.  In an instant he was on the other side of the quad, nabbing three of the slower students, and ramming another's face into a stucco column, splattering it with a new coat of scarlet.  He heaved his three remaining screaming captives over the quad's wall into a student seminar and, in three bounds, made his way back across the courts to where some of the more daring players had returned to harass Quistis, assuming her protector had left.  They assumed wrong.

       _That's not humanly possible! she thought furiously as he punched each of them multiple times before they could react and slammed all but one aggressor into the same lamppost, resulting in its bending 30 degrees._

       Quistis was more alarmed than impressed at this point.  He had saved her, but she couldn't excuse him for the body count.  It didn't take a genius to figure out that this last underclassman had no chance of running away faster than the hurricane could catch him.

       _I guess it's up to me to stop him then.  Do I really have to?  Yes, girl, you're a senior officer and you have to set an example.  Do something before there is nothing left to save!_

_       "Squall!" she shouted, throwing her arms around him so he couldn't move.  It caught his attention and as he spun around, still in her grasp, he nearly dug his fist into the curve of her neck.  It took every ounce of strength in him to stop the blow after he'd thrown it on instinct.  Quistis could feel him tensing up and sighed at how lucky she was, nearly fainting right there._

       The last student had fallen down in fright, but being too shaken to crawl away, he just lied there and whimpered.

       This was the closest thing to a voluntary hug that Quistis had ever given, and she figured while she was at it she might as well rest her face on his chest, signaling to the junior to pick his feet up and split.

       _Run, stupid!  I'll hold him off._

_       Her last thought was laughable, and she giggled at it, snuggling deeper into her six-foot teddy bear._

       _Yes, in order to save the future of SeeD, I will sacrifice myself to this demon…ically handsome freak of nature.  Maybe running into that crowd of men dying to get their hands on me was the smartest thing I've done this week._

       She locked her arms around his shoulders so he couldn't budge.  Without looking up, she asked shyly, "Well aren't you going to tell me who you are?"

       "Nice grip," he commented.

       _That's a pretty weird name, she said to herself._

       "That was a compliment," he added after a few heartbeats had gone by.

       "Oh," she gasped, blushing at her silly oversight.

       "There he is!" someone unexpectedly called in their direction from the main corridor.

       Both Quistis and her pillow tensed up simultaneously.  If she had fooled herself into believing even to the slightest extent that "soft and cuddly" aptly described any part of his figure, she was proven dead wrong.  At a second's alarm, rippling muscles filled every inch of the baggy but still fashionable costume that she wouldn't have known existed had she not been partially inside his cloak for the past minute.

       The hall filled with similar shouts and many portentous footsteps.  Quistis eyes widened when she saw every single member of the disciplinary committee running towards them, followed by seven, she counted again, seven sentinel regiments, the entire band armed to the teeth with weapons ready to fire.  Even the stranger had wavered.  This was one fight in which he felt no urge to make an appearance.

       _Maybe they're here to collect these douchebags that tried to grope me, Quistis thought optimistically._

       "Stop, thief!" one of the security guards in the lead shouted, lowering his gun to about eye level and pointing it straight at her…or rather the man who had just saved her from a very sticky situation.  His reinforcements cocked their guns and aimed them right at her rescuer's forehead.  Numerous red targeting laser dots laced the area by his glistening brow.

       _Okay, maybe not.  He must be one hell of a thief to incur the attention to the entire Garden Disciplinary Committee and half the school's enforcement resources!_

_       "This is your only warning," the leader informed him mechanically.  "We will shoot if you move."_

       "Sergeant Jay," he called to his subordinate, "apprehend that man."

       Quistis was not prepared to handle this dramatic reversal.  Her protective instincts urged her hold him in fear of what might happen if she strayed too far to shield him while her danger sense pressed her to push the criminal as far away from her as possible.  Both her mind and body reacted on reflex to the situation without her making clear which to follow, so she ended up awkwardly pulling him closer to her with her left hand and shoving him aside with her right hand.  

       To her surprise, he whispered to her, "Don't worry.  I never walk away from a fight."

       She was about to shout at him, "Forget your stupid maxim and get moving!" when he slipped through her hold and zoomed across to the far side of the court in the same phantasmal manner as he had done earlier, leaving Quistis with a frown on her face.

       _Very funny, coward.  Chivalry being dead, I'll try not to feel miffed, she told herself dryly.  __Oh, Shiva!_

       Sergeant Jay had a knack for reading people's body language.  Today he had a feeling just by the glint in their burglar's eyes that he was going to make a run for it.  So as soon as he saw the rabble-rousing ruffian bend down slightly and threaten the blonde in the red skirt, he pulled the trigger of his pistol.  By the time he saw the man rocket away from the girl, moving her slightly, it was too late to stop the bullet.  The girl realized too that the shell was now headed straight at her.  All the armed security guards stiffened.

_       "Ah!" she screamed, feeling the impact whose force now knocked her off her feet._

       There were some gasps, and when Quistis' vision cleared, she looked up dazedly, only to see the cloaked Squall-imposter standing above her, his hand weakly planted against the nearby wall for support.  _He turned back for me!  Thank Eden!  Oh no, he's hit!_

_       The man was bleeding pretty badly.  After he knocked her out of the way, the bullet landed between this shoulder blade and sternum.  There was blood gushing out at intervals from the corner of his chest where the shot had pierced his black shirt, some parts of the desultory squirts landing on her outfit._

       Seeing that the bullet ended up in the right person, all the guards snapped back to life, lifting their guns once again and pointed them at the wounded villain.  It would definitely be easier to catch him now, having drawn so much blood with the critical hit.  The man's legs wobbled as he struggled to straighten up.

       The explosion of another shot ten times as loud as the misfire filled the courtyard and adjoining hallways.  The few remaining students that hadn't high-tailed out of the area at the sight of the Garden militia jumped out of their skins.  All eyes turned to the source of the eruption and found the smoking gun of a lone cowboy, tipping his hat at his newfound audience.  Behind him in the clearing was Zell, somersaulting from a dribble and dunking the ball through an untended hoop.

       "What the Ifrit are they doing?"Quistis questioned under her breath.

       Irvine had seen the whole sequence of events and now faked an embarrassed smile, dropped his gun like he hadn't meant to touch it, and apologized to the Disciplinary Committee about his gun going off on accident.  His free hand on the far side of his body was not visible to the company of security guards, but it was visible to Quistis and their burglar.  Irvine hurriedly motioned for the brigand to get take off, and faster than he thought possible the man traversed seven meters to a eight-foot wall over which he scrambled and disappeared.  The security guards could not react in time to get off any well-placed shots.

       Only Sergeant Jay was far enough ahead of his group and close enough to Quistis that he saw Irvine's furtive wave to their perpetrator.  Quistis could tell he was not happy that Irvine distracted the units and purposely let him escape.

       Sergeant Jay marched up to Irvine, who by this time had gone to help Quistis up, hissing at him so that only they could hear, "I might not have any witnesses who can testify that you abetted our criminal's getaway, but had it not been for your meddling, he would have been ours.  I think they'd all agree."

       With his last sentence he motioned towards all the guards behind them.

       Irvine coolly looked his addresser in the eyes and rejoined, "I might not have any witnesses who can testify that you were purposely aiming for Quistis' head since no one else was remotely in that proximity but her by the time you fired, and had it not been for that man there, she would have been dead.  I think they'd all agree."

       With his last sentence he motioned towards all the guards behind them.  Irvine could see Sergeant Jay's jaw muscles tightening and his fingers closing into a fist.

       "This is not over, trigger," he growled at last, putting his finger right in Irvine's face.  Then he marched back to his division and apologized to his commanding officer for failing to capture their target.  Eventually all the troops cleared out of the corridor, leaving Irvine and Quistis scowling at the fading sound of footsteps.

       Irvine looked back at Quistis, gloating.  He opened his arms and asked, "So what do I get-"

       She had pulled him down and landed a wet one on his cheek.  He was utterly stunned at how little persuasion that took.  _Nothing like the cold shoulder she gave me at the party._

       "Geez, you move fast, Quistis," he said, laughing.  "Guess that admirer of yours isn't the only one with fast moves."

       He found himself lying flat on his back in the dust a second later.

       "That's what you get for not coming to help me sooner," Quistis carped.

       Irvine jumped up with an incredulous smile.  _I just saved your tight hiney back there!_

       He was in the middle of picking himself up when she kicked away the leg that he was putting all his weight on.  He landed face down this time.  _I'll never understand women._

       "And _that_ is for the smart remark," she added before leaving him and strutting towards Zell.

       She only made it halfway before she felt a cool kiss on her ear.  She nearly jumped, and turned her head quickly but her eyes did not pick up on anything.  _Irvine is still deciding if it's safe to get up, so who in the Ifrit touched me?_

       She felt the cool kiss again and realized that it was just Shiva, cozying up to her as always.  The icy, voluptuous GF was in her stealth mode, her body acting as a transparent sheet and thus appeared invisible.

       "What are you doing here?" Quistis whispered.  She had to be careful to not speak in Shiva's direction, knowing well how her breath would become visible vapor in Shiva's chilled vicinity, a dead giveaway of  the hidden GF's presence to Irvine.

       "Princess, _you called _me_, remember?" Shiva turned the question around, each one of her chilly words nipping Quistis' cheek.  Quistis' face always seemed to be rosier after a touch of frost._

       Quistis looked aside and recalled that she had mentally exclaimed, "Oh, Shiva!" just as Sergeant Jay unloaded his gun in her direction.

       She hissed acerbically to Shiva but tenderly nevertheless, "You took your sweet time getting here."

       "You called at a bad time.  I was trying to take a bath," the other answered back softly, caressing Quistis' chin.

       Quistis was distracted from wondering how the ice goddess could take a shower in a frozen block of ice because Shiva had begun to dance around her mistress, playing with Quistis' hair and massaging her shoulders.  If it hadn't been so hot outside,  Quistis would have told her to stop, but since it was, each cool stroke felt splendid.

       "Just be careful not to step on the ground while you're flying.  In this heat, you're bound to be melting a little and they'll notice your curious little wet footprints," Quistis cautioned.  It used to be hard to speak without moving her lips, but she had gotten used to chatting with Shiva day after day in this manner.

       Shiva snuggled in for a chilly but sugary hug, whispering back, "You're always looking out for me, but I'm the one who's supposed to be the Guardian Force, remember?"

       "Yeah, good job protecting me today while I was standing in a crossfire," Quistis teased.

       "I _told_ you I was busy," Shiva murmured.

       "Yeah, busy waiting for the bath-water to thaw," Quistis emended playfully.

       She could imagine Shiva pouting with her trademark "You're no fun" face.  For someone thousands of years old, Shiva still looked and acted like she was 17.

       "Well, I didn't want to intrude," she explained innocently.  "You looked like you had company."

       "Yes, and thanks to him you still have someone to guard," Quistis rejoined with feigned bitterness.

       "I'll thank the dear in my own way the next time I see him, then," Shiva replied smoothly.  "He did look kinda cute."

       For some reason what the GF said ruffled Quistis a little.

       "You'd better get going.  You might start steaming under the sun and it won't look to discreet if I approach Zell while engulfed in a fog," Quistis said under her breath.

       "Toodaloo, then, sweet-cheeks!" laughed Shiva as she flitted back into nothingness.  Somehow she managed to sneak in a quick kiss before her mistress could do anything.

       Quistis had now gotten closer to the court that Zell was occupying, and he looked up from his practice.  Irvine was now just a few steps behind her, his legs still shaky from her putting him in the dirt.  Zell set the ball down, waved to Quistis, and then looked around with a puzzled expression.  _I don't see Rinoa anywhere._

       "Where's Rinoa?  I thought I heard someone call her a few minutes ago."

       Quistis blushed and muttered, "No, just little, ol' me.  Someone thought I was Squall's girlfriend."__

       Zell reddened and then hit himself again.  _Oops, now look what you did, Zell.  Stupid, so stupid of you, Zell.  You knew__ it was a touchy subject, so why didn't you just shut up?_

       Quistis realized that they hadn't paid any attention to what was happening outside their own game and only Irvine had bothered to go over and check out what was so noisy in the closing minutes of the brawl.

       "Didn't you see all that commotion back there?  Why didn't go check it out?" she asked.

       "It's bad luck to leave in the middle of a game," Zell explained.

       "Why did Irvine come over for a look then?" Quistis remarked.

       Zell shrugged and stated the obvious, "He was losing."

       "11-3 is hardly losing, mama's boy," Irvine chimed in.

       Zell raised his fists belligerently, growling, "Just remember that's in _my favor."_

       "So what are you doing here anyway?" Irvine inquired, hastily changing the subject. 

       "What are you two doing here?" Quistis returned.  She was totally unprepared to deal with them.

       "He asked first," was Zell's childish reply, unexpectedly jumping in and helping Irvine.  Irvine nodded and shot Zell a grateful look.  He bent over to pick up the basketball before looking back over at Quistis, just to let her know that they were waiting for her answer.

       "The number of robberies in the past week are skyrocketing.  I've been trying to find Squall since noon to ask him what precautions should be taken and whether it was about time to assign a special task force to solve the problem.  I looked in all his usual hiding places, and someone told me that he frequented the basketball courts, so here I am," she explained.

       "Wasn't that _your_ 'problem' who we just allowed to jump over the wall?" Irvine asked, shooting a jumper.

       Quistis blinked.  She hadn't connected how good at stealing things the stranger was with his agility and how many complaints of robbery were coming into the Garden's security department mailbox.  After today's odd sequence of events, she was even less sure how to handle the situation than at the start when she was trying to solicit Squall's advice.

       "Okay, your turn to answer why you are here," Quistis said, moving on.

       "Because we finished our SeeD Lv A-class mission, of course," Irvine shot back with an overly proud and cheesy grin.  _Had to answer her somehow.  _This was better than nothing.__

_       Just to draw everyone's attention from his weak answer, he launched the ball towards the hoop.___

       Zell started sweating.  _Please don't ask us why we didn't report back to Balamb Garden.  Please don't ask us why we didn't report back to Balamb Garden.  Please don't…_

_       "Why didn't you report back to Balamb Garden?" Quistis asked, skeptically raising an eyebrow._

       "Trabia was a lot closer than Balamb Garden," Zell said hastily.  "I mean, we've been practically ten minutes away from here for the past few days."  

_       Plus we wouldn't have to answer to Headmaster Cid directly if we were at another Garden, Zell added silently, pretending to watch Irvine as he made another shot attempt._

       "Why didn't you guys rest and eat here then?  There is plenty of room," Quistis asked.

       _Like we didn't think of that all that time we were stranded out there, Irvine reflected bitterly._

       "We had, uh, plenty of ration bars on the ship," Zell made up after an extended period of silence during which he pretended to be looking at something in the distance.

       "Yeah, lots of ration bars," Irvine agreed too quickly to be taken seriously with overly enthusiastic nodding.  He coughed as a distraction and tried an underhanded toss.

       "Like rooms _full_ of ration bars," Zell repeated, just to make sure she didn't miss it.

       "You're not in trouble, kids," Quistis said quickly.  "Headmaster Cid said you completed your mission just as he expected."

       Irvine misfired when he heard that, and exchanged puzzled looks with Zell.

       "The Shumi signed the contract agreeing to fund this Garden to its completion," Quistis explained.  "Apparently, just as Cid figured, you two left them thinking how weak-minded and exploitable the new Garden trainees would be once it was built, giving them every reason to make the rest of the payments.  He also got you two out of the way for two weeks so you wouldn't screw up anything too serious to fix during the initial foundation construction."

       "Never had a doubt that we couldn't handle it," Zell beamed.  _Thank Eden!  I was so scared.  Hey, wait, I've been used.  They used me, how dare they!  Wow, I've been used, that's so awesome!_

       "Yeah," Irvine added with a big smile as he threw the ball up again, "we eat double missions for breakfast."

       _Breakfast is my least favorite meal, Irvine thought to himself._  We lucked out big time.  Hey, wait, I've been used.  They used me, how dare they!  Wow, I've been used, that's so awesome!__

       He and Zell gave each other high-fives and broke out into a big celebration, praising each other for all the good things that they did and did not do alike.  At the same time they inched towards the archway leading to the exit.

       "Back to your second objective," Quistis cut in before they had a chance to sneak away, "did it really take you two weeks to check out the weather?"  The two men froze but instantly recovered and tried to mask the guilt written on their faces with innocent smiles.

_       Don't think I didn't notice how you two dodged my original question.  I still remember, Quistis thought coolly.  She put her hands on her hips and waited for a real answer._

_       Just play dumb, Zell proposed silently._

       _We should play dumb, Irvine agreed mentally, trying his luck with the rim again._

       _Don't play dumb, Quistis communicated with her glare alone._

       "It wasn't our fault that we just got a list of geographical locations and no directions as to how to get to those places," Zell and Irvine whined in harmony.  

       Quistis crossed her arms.  _They obviously practiced that for at least three hours._

       "I don't buy it.  The place names are unique, there is no other Mandy Beach, regardless to what landmark you are using as reference," Quistis scoffed.  "Try again."

       Irvine and Zell put their heads together to brainstorm some other possible excuses when Quistis spoke up, "And the truth this time.  I've already lost a GF today, was nearly gang-raped by an entire courtyard of boys, been held at gun point and shot at, so I really don't need you two lying to me."

       The faces of both men grew interested so immediately and concurrently that Quistis could tell it was deliberate.  Irvine even set the ball down, either because it would have proved distracting to their conversation or he felt it better to stop embarrassing himself.

       "Gosh," he exclaimed, simulating a flabbergasted expression, "how did you manage to lose a GF?"

       "You're not getting off that easy," she said, just so they'd know, "but I suppose if you're interested..."

       Her two-man audience played the roles of sympathetic, appreciative, and engrossed listeners too perfectly to be convincing.

       "I lost Alexander this morning," Quistis said, sighing.

       "The GF that looks like a castle?" Zell asked.

       Quistis nodded, her hands closing over each other in anxiety.

       "What do you mean you lost him?' Irvine questioned.  "What did the castle do?  Get up and walk away without anyone noticing?"

       "Drop the sarcasm, Irvine," Quistis told him.  "He didn't just walk away.  He asked me first."

       "So you managed to lose a very polite castle," Irvine summed up what she was saying, putting on a serious face and trying to understand.

       Zell would have liked to see if Quistis could grammatically link all the profane expressions, but he felt it necessary to interrupt Quistis while she was unloading more rounds of blasphemy on Irvine than he had Pulse Ammo in his gun.

       "Didn't you try to stop him?" Zell asked her, not looking at Irvine truly grateful face.

       "What was I to do?  Stand in front of him and hold up my arms while he mowed me down?" Quistis objected.

       Zell furtively punched Irvine before Quistis could turn and see him signaling that the idea had merit.

       "No, I meant with your words," Zell explicated.  "I've never seen you get outtalked by anyone."

       Quistis beamed at the honest compliment.

       "I did try, but he had made up his mind already," she elucidated.

       "Why was Alexander so eager to go?" Zell tried next.

       "Not to mention," Irvine jumped into the conversation, "where could he have gone?"

       "He seemed to think that it was now or never, so he just got up and moved out into the ocean," Quistis recalled with a frown.

       "Oh," Irvine acknowledged, nodding with comprehension, "so he didn't just wander off and disappear."  _I wonder how long it will take to dry and scratch off all the algae that he'll have picked up by the time he resurfaces._

       "No," Quistis reassured, "he asked me to give him a sabbatical."

       "I didn't know SeeDs were in the business of giving their GFs vacation time whenever they ask for," Irvine marveled.  _No wonder you got fired from being the SeeD instructor._

       "This is after he threatened to quit my employment," Quistis added.  _This has nothing to do with how I lost my teaching license, if that's what you're thinking._

       "So it gets better," Irvine grunted, obviously pleased.

       "What else did he do?" Zell asked, ignoring his partner's air headedness.

       "He wanted to go on strike," Quistis replied.

       "What kept him from carrying out either action?" Zell inquired.

       "I told him that the SeeD manual only allows for the Master to rescind employment, not the GF, and that the Supreme Court had outlawed GF strikes," Quistis replied.

       "So he just got up and left?" Zell repeated.

       "As if Alexander was going to use the 'Sit Down' as a strike tactic," Irvine cracked.

       "That's unconstitutional, by the way," Zell whispered to him before continuing, "Did he say what the purpose of his journey was?"

       "It was all unintelligible," Quistis replied.  "I had a hard time understanding him, but I think it has to do with some book."

       Zell and Irvine raised eyebrows concomitantly.

       "What book?" they asked in harmony.

       Quistis scowled and tapped her forehead, trying to put piece everything back together.  She sighed at length and shrugged, making her best guess:

       "I think he said it was titled 'Alexandria' and that it had a face on the cover."

       "It must be one special book," Irvine commented.  "Is he in the habit of collecting books?"

       "Have you ever seen his library?" Quistis answered with her own question.

       Irvine was apparently too good for libraries, so he teased, "I'm not the one who frequents libraries to pick up the librarians.  That honorably practice belongs to our mutual friend Zell." 

       Zell colored, crying indignantly, "Hey!  Mina was a model before she started working in Balamb Garden."

       "Some model she must have been if our library can afford to pay her more than she was making," Irvine criticized. 

       Quistis saw that the men would soon come to blows if she did not step in, so she intervened by describing the library.

       "I've been inside Alexander a few times and the library is pretty queer," she began.  "It doesn't operate like a normal library; rather it's more like a private collection.  No one is allowed to borrow any books and taking them from the room is prohibited.  He kept referring to 'Alexandria,' so I suspect it is the reason behind that rule."

       "And you think this book drove him to leave," Zell finished for her, grudgingly putting aside how Irvine had impugned his girlfriend's capacity.

       "It had to have been.  That's all he was mumble about," Quistis replied with another shrug.

       Irvine rubbed his chin, wondering what a castle could mumble about a book.

       Quistis read him perfectly, and reacted saying, "He went on about a blue rodent that lived inside his book between the pages 165 and 200.  No one was to flip through it under any circumstance because it was dangerous."

       "What can I say?" Irvine admitted smugly as he did some stretches.  "Reading is deadly and should be avoided at all costs.  I rest my case."

       Zell scowled and said to Quistis, "You're right, it _is kind of random.  Do you recall anything else he might have said?  Any words that caught your attention?  Place names, maybe?"_

       "Galbadia I heard twice definitely.  Something about waterfalls.  That's it," she replied.

       "Why didn't he think it could wait?" Zell probed.

       "Did you see this coming, or has he never exercised such impulsive behavior before?"

       Quistis thought it over before answering, "He was always the quiet type.  You know, he never talked much."

       Irvine called upon a dreadfully contemplative look.  _Ah, yes, the quiet castle, I know the type well._

       He was lucky that Quistis was too busy trying to recall something about her GF to look at him, otherwise he would have ended up on the ground again.  Her face suddenly lit up.

       "I remember now!" she cried, beaming. "The moment we reached the Deep Sea Research Center, he's been volatile."

       "That's a weird reason to be disruptive," Irvine remarked.

       Zell agreed before asking Quistis if there were other points in time when Alexander demonstrated a plethora of atypical behavior.  It was a tough question, so Quistis took some time before answering it.

       "I believe," she said tentatively, "he became more withdrawn as time went by, and even after we left the Research Center I could sense some hostility in him."

       "You should have fed him at the right times, walked and played with him more," Irvine chastised, shaking his finger at her.

       It would be major euphemism to say that Quistis was less than pleased.  The truth of it was that she was a hair shy of spitting fire.

       Irvine eyes were nowhere near as dumb as his mouth, and he suppressed his gasp to look dejectedly at his shoes.  _I could have sworn at a distance she looked better than a Red Dragon!_

       "No," Zell interrupted, "let's think this through.  Obviously what happened there started to worry him and whatever the rodent in the book told him unnerved him enough to pack his bags and hit road, so to speak.  What is his relation with the Deep Sea Research Center?"

       Irvine rolled his eyes and said, "You aren't taking this rodent episode seriously, are you?"

       Quistis shushed him, sensing that Zell was almost on to something.

       "There had to be a cause for his urgency," Zell reasoned aloud.  "Did he mention any names besides 'Alexandria'?"

       Quistis licked her lips and pondered for a bit.

       "He was talking rather quickly, but I think he may have mentioned Bahamut and Eden," she pronounced slowly.

       "So he went into the ocean to do what?" Zell continued, still trying to figure out the connection between Alexander, Bahamut, and Eden.

       "To find whatever the book told him to find, I guess," Quistis responded.

       Zell looked skeptical.

       "Impossible," he said.  "There is no way he could have excused himself and left the purpose of his trip so ambiguous.  If there is an urgency, there has to be a cause.  If he is responding, then he must think he can still do something to placate the emergency."

       Quistis' face froze and she slowly lifted her head.

       "'To keep Bahamut from my township and die for Eden'," she recalled. 

       "Did he say that?" Zell asked.  "What township then?"

       Quistis shrugged, saying, "Beats me."

       "So do you think he was looking for a township then?"

       "Looking for one to claim as his own," Quistis suggested.

       "That will be hard, considering there aren't that many unclaimed towns lying around," Irvine pointed out sarcastically.

       "Thank you, great Irvine, master of the obvious," Zell boomed with every intent to cow him.

       "Maybe he didn't mean all the nouns literally," Quistis suggested.  "Could 'Bahamut,' 'township,' and 'Eden' be symbolic?"

       "As in battle evil for world peace?" Zell asked doubtfully.

       "_That's not naive," Irvine scoffed, tipping his hat._

       "So just to make sure I have this right," Zell said, "the rodent told him to do protect the township?"

       "I got the impression that the rodent tipped him off, but that the actual order came from someone else," Quistis replied.

       Zell looked at her curiously.  _How in the world did you infer that?_

       Quistis explained quickly, "I think Alexander was confused at the time, but he seemed to think that I had told him to leave."

       Irvine smirked at Quistis' words.  _I'd say he was pretty confused then._

       "I don't follow," Zell admitted.

       "He just repeated over and over that I had told him to leave, which of course is absurd," Quistis clarified.

       "To leave, but not to save the town and all that jazz," Irvine observed.

       Zell nodded, seeing where Irvine was going with the issue.

       "Yes, so maybe he's leaving because some other Quistis dismissed him and he's trying to indulge himself with some pre-retirement getaway."

       "That other Quistis must have been pretty dumb," Irvine commented lightly.

       "I concur with your opinion about the weak-minded other Quistis," Zell followed up, nodding.

       Quistis had, meanwhile, turned bright red.

       "Stop talking about me like I'm not here to hear you!" she shouted, taking a few unconscious steps towards them.

       "Sorry," Zell apologized, suppressing his laugh while he and Irvine both took a few unconscious steps back, "but the idea that you told him to go save the world is even more ludicrous than him running off to save the world by himself."

       "If 'Bahamut' and 'Eden' aren't symbolic terms, why would he mention them?" Quistis countered.

       "They _are_ his fellows," Irvine noted.  "Why _shouldn't_ he mention their names?"

       "Actually," Quistis corrected, "Alexander secretly hated those two GFs with passion."

       This was news to Zell, and it would have been to Irvine had he not been preoccupied with catching a midget Bite Bug whose presence had somehow offended him.  Zell leaned in, saying, "Come again?"

       "He never spoke to Bahamut," Quistis informed him, "and every time he passed by Eden, he'd stiffen."

       Irvine scratched his ear and asked how she could tell when a castle stiffened.

       "I think we can discount the symbolism theory," Zell spoke up, directing her attention away from Irvine.

       "Why?" she asked.

       "Because there is probably a more viable connection between Bahamut and Eden than what they could mean symbolically if you stretched them," Zell assured.

       "Such as?"

       "We acquired both of them in the Deep Sea Research Center," Zell stated simply.

       Irvine nodded and reminded Quistis, "Yeah, it took three Red Dragons to get to Bahamut on the first floor, and we had to draw Eden from Ultima Weapon in the basement."

       "Holy Shiva, you're right!" Quistis exclaimed.  "But what do they have to do with Alexander?"

       "Your guess is as good as mine, but all that's important is that he _will eventually come back after he finds it, right?" Zell replied, popping his knuckles._

       "I'm not sure if he'll ever return," Quistis responded, "because he mentioned settling somewhere above three parallel waterfalls."

       "Sounds more like a place of fantasy than reality," Irvine remarked.

       "Did he get this idea from the book, too?" Zell asked.

       Quistis nodded, her body language expressing clearly, "What can you do?"

       "There's one thing you can be sure of, though," Irvine guaranteed.

       Both Zell and Quistis turned to look at him.

       "He's convinced that his time is almost up, and that your time together is definitely up.  Obviously it wasn't a vacation that he requested; it was a resignation," Irvine concluded.

       He hit it right on the mark.  For a long time, no one spoke but dead silence.

       "Well," Irvine comforted, "if it makes you feel any better, you only lost a GF, but Alexander, man, that boy has completely lost it.  One _crazy_ castle!"

       "Fine," Quistis wrapped up abruptly, "I've said my part.  Stop dodging my original question and tell me why it took you two that long to get back."

       Seeing how they had no more options, Irvine pointed at Zell at the same time Zell pointed at Irvine.  Quistis held up her hands and started walking away, regretting ever asking.  Irvine picked the basketball up for another shot.  Quistis assumed it was because he would not be satisfied until he lost all face.

       "Nutrient bar boy here dropped the keys in the field and it took us two days to find them," Irvine answered hastily, pointing at Zell in the process.

       "Save it; I don't want to hear it," Quistis said, rolling her eyes as she moved out of hearing range.

       _Squall, where are you? she wondered, but still glad to be back on track.  It didn't take long for her mind to wander astray though, and soon, without realizing it, her thoughts turned to wondering who her tall, cloaked rescuer really was._

       Irvine took one eye off the spot on the backboard for which he was aiming to watch Quistis disappear around the corner of some building.  He shouted over to Zell, "Hey, we can keep playing now.  What was the score, 6-7 my lead?" he asked.

       "You wish.  You stink at this game.  Don't think that during her gabbing, I didn't notice the ten practice shots you took from that same spot where you're standing now all rattled out," Zell quipped.

       "It was actually only eight shots if you kept count, but okay, 8-5 your lead, then," Irvine tried.

       "It's not negotiable, Irvine," Zell said with finality.

       Irvine lifted his nose and projected his "Who needs you" vibes.  Then he smiled sneakily as he called for his GFs.  Tonberry King and Jumbo Cactuar appeared out of thin air and fell a few feet onto the court, adorning the originally flat surface with four ugly indentations.

       "Hey," Zell protested, "that's cheating!"

       Irvine stuck his tongue out.

       "No one is saying that you can't pull out your own GFs, crybaby," he teased.

       "You know I don't have any GFs junctioned right now!" Zell shouted.

       Irvine shrugged.  _Your loss._

       "You're going to get into some big trouble," Zell cautioned.

       "Who would be bored enough to hang up some "No GFs on the court" signs around here?" Irvine reasoned out loud.  "No one.  So it's not against the court rules."

       Zell looked anything but convinced.

       "Besides," Irvine added with a casual shrug, "Quistis isn't here."

       "That'll work," Zell conceded readily, eyes flashing, "but let's make it a quick game.  I gotta go upstairs to the computer room and download some things."

       To himself, he added, _I hear the screensavers calling to me_.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	11. Setting 08: 1820 DAY 15, Trabia Coastbor...

Setting 08: 1820 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Cliffs "All times I have enjoy'd 

_greatly, have suffer'd greatly; both with those_

_that loved me, and alone."_

-Tennyson, Alfred Lord

"Ulysses" 7

       _"I_t's your turn, Doomtrain."

       The locomotive Guardian Force stirred to life after the GF Diablos reminded him whose go it was.  Beside him sat the three-headed dog GF Cerberus, each head having demanded to play a different hand.  Cerberus A stared curiously at all the rotors chugging sleepily back to life and the smoke puffing out of the engine.  Even Cerberus B had to pause and watch the windshield wipers come to life, clearing the ash that had built up and blocked Doomtrain's burning eyes.  Meanwhile, Cerberus C snuck a quick peek at Cerberus B's cards.

       "What?" Doomtrain rumbled.  "My go?  What did Ifrit put down?"

       "We're skipping him," Diablos hissed, his wings rustling from his annoyance at Ifrit's early leave that had delayed the game.  Cerberus A wanted to wait for him, but Cerberus B and C outvoted him.

       "I didn't call you out to play a game of Bluff," Squall reminded sternly, his irritation brewing.

       All the GFs turned to the cliff edge and whined cacophonously to their master, sitting with his relaxed feet hanging over the edge.  They could not see anything but the darkened outline of their master because he was resting right in front of them, facing the setting sun.

       "I wonder why the richest man in the world has to mope," Diablos muttered under his breath.

       "What do you mean?" Cerberus A asked, lifting his head.  "I didn't know he was rich."

       "That's because your body didn't come with three brains," Diablos sneered.

       Cerberus A didn't get the insult, Cerberus C chose to ignore it, while Cerberus B sighed, rolled his eyes, and explained it to his first head, "The need for Gil was so pathetic throughout all the missions from the liberation of Timber through the killing of Ultimecia that he racked up enough to retire early, live to old age in luxury, and even support a hearty family of fourteen."

       "Fourteen exactly?" Cerberus A asked incredulously.

       Cerberus C whispered over Cerberus B's head to tell Cerberus A that he was drooling.

       "You left out the part about our Master's intentional manipulation of the frequency of pay," Diablos commented with an artificial yawn.

       Cerberus C was now as lost as Cerberus A and they both looked towards the middle head for an answer other than extortion.

       "Master figured out that pay came with the number of steps he took, not by this new time clock system.  Cid saw how much money was flowing into Master's account and realized that he was deliberately going out of the way in every mission."

       "Did Cid scold him?" Cerberus C questioned.

       Cerberus B shook his head, replying, "He just assumed that Master was spending that time chasing after Rinoa…as if."

       "I was under the impression that there was a flat rate per mission with the hazard pay determined by a linear relationship between level of danger and bonus rewarded," Doomtrain rumbled, cutting into the conversation.

       "If that were the case, he never would have gotten his first paycheck since Timber still isn't officially liberated," Diablos scoffed, showing his vicious-looking teeth through a triumphant grin.

       "I forgot about that," Cerberus A murmured.

       "Don't worry about it," Cerberus B comforted.  "We weren't around at the time so you couldn't have known."

       "He's never around," Cerberus C criticized Cerberus A disgustedly.

       Just meters away, Squall Leonhart found it hard to concentrate on his problems with all the chatter going on behind him.  He looked down and stared at his new sandals that didn't quite match the orange t-shirt he was wearing, finally wondering where Ifrit had gone for the past five minutes.

       _Whatever it is, It had better be important, Squall reflected bitterly._

       The GFs convinced Squall to let them have until Ifrit's return to play.  That way they wouldn't have to catch him up on matters.

       "Where is he anyway?" asked Squall, clearly irritated by having to wait.

       "GFs have lunch breaks, too, Master," Diablos informed Squall.

       Squall pointed at the sun setting in front of their eyes.

       "It's a bit late for lunch," Leonhart hissed, not having decided between an acerbic tone or a confrontational one.

       "Some GFs go by Greenwich time," Diablos clarified, warranting a look from Squall so hostile that he decided it would be safe to shut up for awhile.

       "It seems like he's taking the rest of the day off," their Master grumbled.

       "Didn't you clock out at noon to take the rest of the day off, Master Squall?" Cerberus B asked.

_       Point taken.  You can shut your trap now._

_       Cerberus B was, in Squall's opinion, the smartest of the three heads._

       _What did Ifrit do today to deserve a lunch break?  At least I put up some signs around the basketball courts before I clocked out, Squall thought spitefully._

_       Cerberus B was now whining about an itch that no one was willing to scratch for him even if Cerberus A consented to being scratched.  Cerberus C could care less.  Diablos had considered having Leviathan play in Ifrit's place but he realized that Leviathan would ruin the cards with water.  It had taken him seven centuries to find a deck of fireproof cards so Ifrit could play, and he would have to damn himself if he wanted to find one that was both fireproof __and waterproof.  Diablos shuddered at the thought of Cid noticing the deck missing from his bottom drawer. _

_       Hell, he thought, brushing the idea off casually, _if that ever happened, we could just blame it on Squall.__

       Cerberus C noticed that Diablos wasn't paying attention to what Doomtrain was putting down.  _He must be thinking up something sinister.  Sheesh, look at that creepy grin._

       Squall reached over his right shoulder to scratch an inch.  It turned out to be one of those infernal, internal itches so he just crossed his arms and huffed.

       _How am I supposed to ponder the matters of state with all this going on?  My back is burning, my ears are burning, and now I'm even smelling something burning!  he thought furiously.  _

       It suddenly occurred to him that what he was smelling was the part of the suffocating odor that unquestionably emanated from the all too familiar GF, Ifrit.  He was about to turn his head and carp at the monster, but caught himself.  He was Squall, and Squall turned for no one.

       "Where have you been?" he asked aloud, resuming his empty stare at his sandals.  _These are some really nice sandals._

       All the GFs looked up and wondered which of them the Master was addressing, but instantly caught on that their playmate had returned.  In the middle of welcoming the fiery GF back, they realized that while his return was synonymous with resuming the card game without skipping anyone, Squall had decided to end the party with Ifrit's arrival.  Thus, just by listening to the drop in intensity of the greetings, Squall could tell that the initial unanimous excitement had shriveled into sure disappointment.

       "Had to ask Squaresoft, Inc. about a ruling," Ifrit responded with his usual raspy voice.

       He shot a knowing look at Diablos and added with emphasis on the third word, "And you _don't _get to put more than 4 of the same monster in the deck for Bluff just because they are Triple Triad cards."

       Diablos cursed and threw down the 19 Elnoyle cards he'd been holding, his ploy having been exposed.  He suddenly blushed at the sharp look that each of the players was giving him, demanding that he pay them back all the Gil of which he had cheated them. 

       "What took you so long?" Squall asked, not distracted by the mess Diablos was in.__

"There was a flight delay due to hazardous weather," Ifrit replied calmly.__

_       That's no excuse to abandon our discussion about Rinoa! Squall decided.  His eyes narrowed, but he didn't pursue the topic.  Ifrit sensed that Squall was letting him off easy, so he considered slipping quietly into the mass of GFs that was beating the Gil out of Diablos.  That would have been the smarter thing to do, but seeing how Squall had been a problem-child since he first took him up, Ifrit stayed where he was to endure the grilling that would somehow make Squall feel more secure about himself._

       _I was never good with human relationships, Squall considered, slipping back into his own world of deep thought.  _To Diablos with it if I haven't gotten use to getting left behind all the time.  My mother left me, Laguna left me, Sis left me, now...__

_       Ifrit was shuffling his feet, at which Squall frowned but continued to ponder._

       _Is it really just because I'm that kind of person?  What do they expect?  Someone who won't drive them away?_

       Squall's mind froze for a second, whether because he just became aware that Ifrit's nail-biting was more annoying that his feet-shuffling, or because he just characterized himself as a love repellent.  He scratched his head desperately, looking for an alternative.

       _This can't be right!  Am I that undesirable?  Does no one want me?  Am I just a piece of property that gets passed around from one passerby to the next unfortunate soul, to someone who blames his luck for getting stuck with me?_

_       Ifrit yawned ostentatiously, but Squall was just barely able to hold himself back from lashing out at him right then._

       _I must carry no value if no one values my companionship.  Shareware gets passed around.  I'm a demo, then, a fake.  No one wants to end up with me._

_       He blinked with a start, and when his eyelids lifted, they revealed two eyes wide with fear._

       _I'm a disease, he concluded sadly._

       Ifrit felt that something was wrong but did not venture to ask.__

_       So that's the deal?  Squall asked himself, summing it up.  _I get picked up, used, exploited, and then dropped because I'm not good enough?  It was their turn, and now that they're done, they want to get rid of me?__

_       Ifrit was getting really worried now, seeing Squall's fingers curling into a tight fist, the muscles along his arm all bulging from the tension._

       _I guess they figure they can just toss me back into the gutter like some stray dog.  It's of no cost to anyone since I was an orphan anyway.  Of course I have no value, then.  I was just someone else's leftovers to begin with._

_       Ifrit did not like the look on Squall's face, wrestling in pain, anger, doubt, and hate.  He tried to quiet the fight between the other GFs, but they didn't notice.  Ifrit prepped himself to interrupt Squall's thoughts, knowing well the brutal consequences of the offense._

       Squall recalled his earlier comparison about his being a disease.  _I'm more like a poison than an infectious disease.  Everyone tries to find a cure from me, and the just leave when they see that it won't work.  They think I'm a poison so they want to change me.  Do I really want to change for some people that can't see me as something better than that to begin with?_

_       Ifrit coughed purposely and tried to tap his Master on the shoulder._

       Squall spun around, eyes flashing so horribly that Ifrit decided wisely to back off.__

_       So Rinoa is just like the rest of them, he thought, resuming right where he left off in his brooding.__  She'll leave me if she hasn't already left._

       "If there isn't anything else, I'll be leaving," Ifrit said finally after working up enough courage.  He had no idea that it was the worst thing to say at that instant.

       "You're not going anywhere!" Squall shouted, jumping up and taking Ifrit by the horns before giving it an aggressive shake.  The squabbling GFs behind the two stopped in surprise.  Ifrit was usually Squall's scapegoat, and every time he got told, it was a highly-prized and gratifying experience, envied by every GF not junctioned to Squall.

       Hardly noticing how the fire spirit's horns had begun to sear the flesh of his palms, but startled by his own uncharacteristic outburst, Squall let go of Ifrit's horns and began pacing.  He pulled out a rolled baby Malboro tentacle from the case in the pocket of his jeans.

       _This is driving me crazy, he thought, shaking his head.  __I have to calm down.  I have to have a cigarette.  Have to have one._

_       Ifrit brushed his hand over the end of the roll and lit it as Squall held it out._

       Nobody spoke for awhile.  It seemed safer to let him work out his frustration along with the fumes he was exhaling.

       Doomtrain finally broke the silence.

       "If status defects are what you are looking for, I can speed up the process for you," he rumbled.

       "That's not too healthy, Master," Ifrit agreed.

       "I suppose you want to tell me that dating a sorceress is healthy," Squall barked at them.

       "I was just coming to that," Ifrit said hastily.  This was what all the GFs had been waiting for, a perfect opportunity to bring into open discussion what Squall had been wanting to say for the past few hours.

       "Do you want me to kill her for you?" Diablos offered, running his tongue over his fangs.

       Squall pretended that he hadn't heard that.  He reached in his pocket and jingled the keys it carried to the spanking new, blue A09-series Garden motorbike, the next generation of jet-propulsion A08 motorbikes on which the Galbadian soldiers had ridden while attacking Balamb.

       "We conferred while you were hanging up your "No GFs on the court" signs and came up with some interesting views about your girlfriend," Cerberus B said, taking Ifrit's place in the conversation after a noticeable pause.  _Why is he staring at that new bike of his?_

       "And we did it outside the courts so we wouldn't undermine what you were doing," Cerberus C added quickly.  _That bike must have cost him at least three quarters of the Gil he had saved since he was inducted into SeeD._

       "Even though it was a bit prejudiced against GFs," Diablos contributed with a fake cough.  _You better watch your keys, buddy, or that cute bike is mine._

       Cerberus B scowled at him before nodding at Ifrit to continue.  _Tear your scum-bag eyes away from the Master's bike, Diablos._

       "Well, you know how you can't draw or use any magic unless you have those specific abilities switched on?" Ifrit asked.  _Tear your scum-bag eyes away from the Master's bike, Diablos._

       Squall nodded tentatively.  _Tear your scum-bag eyes away from my bike, Diablos, or I will tear your eyes from you._

       "Well, without junctioning any GFs, no one can cast any spells or use magic of any sort," Cerberus B finished for Ifrit.

       "Are you trying to debar Rinoa from being a sorceress?" Squall ventured.

       Cerberus B shrugged and answered, "You are no different from her in magic use is all we're saying."

       "Without us, you couldn't do anything, basically," Diablos laid out bluntly.

       Squall shot him _the look_ that instantly quieted him.  He rubbed the back of his head absent-mindedly and tried to come up with a hole in their theory.  It didn't take long to find one.

       "But even when she doesn't have any GFs junctioned to her, she doesn't lose all the spells she drew.  All the magic stays locked up inside her," Squall brought to their attention.

Ifrit had seen that petty counter-argument coming and was ready to rebut it.

       "The spells you draw stay locked up inside you too, Master," the GF pointed out.  "Hell, you can even switch magic spells that have been drawn or those that have been junctioned from person to person.  So if Rinoa is a sorceress, and you two switch junctioned spells, does that make you a warlock?"    

       Squall raised one eyebrow slightly and said, "You know you are walking a really fine line on the definition of a sorceress, all based on technicalities in terminology."

       "Hey, if you want to split hairs on definitions, ask the former President Deling what he thinks constitutes 'sex'," Diablos joked.

       No one thought it was a particularly funny crack, even less so because the former President Deling was no longer alive.

       "What about her limit break?" Squall questioned, still skeptical.

       "You mean that pathetic one where she loses all control of herself and casts spells like crazy?" Diablos popped in.  "What's that move called?  Angel Wing or something?"

       Diablos scoffed and then added, "You should check out Lucifer's wingspan!"

       Squall told Diablos that no one really cared for his company and gave him permission to leave.  As the other GFs broke out into a standing ovation, Diablos quickly hid himself behind Doomtrain and out of Squall's view.

       "What kind of name is 'limit break'?" Cerberus C asked.

"Sounds stupid," Cerberus A agreed.

       "Hey," Cerberus B cut in, "it's better than 'Trance' or something dumb like that."

       "What would you rather call it, then?" Squall asked Ifrit.

       Ifrit thought about it for awhile before answering, "This is off the topic, but I'd call it 'Desperation Maneuver' or 'Geronimo'." 

       All the GFs except Doomtrain murmured with approval.

       "Personally I think that sounds too much like Gerogero," Doomtrain huffed.

       Cerberus B turned back to Ifrit to correct his last statement.  "It's not that far off the topic.  If you consider Rinoa's Angel Wing as mere sorcery, you have to wonder whether or not she could pull off that limit break without being junctioned to any of us."

       Squall thought about it.  _He's right.  I've never seen Rinoa do that without any GFs.  Hey, wait a second!_

_       "What about her casting spells during her limit break that she doesn't even have?  Magic doesn't just come out of nowhere," Squall said._

       Ifrit looked at Cerberus B for help.  The latter GF nodded, saying, "I'll take this one."

       With Squall listening, he explained, "You know how Selphie has her Slot limit break?"

       "Yeah, it's completely random," Squall acknowledged.

       "Yes," Cerberus B agreed, "but some of those spells Selphie doesn't have stored either.  In fact, half of those spells you can't draw from enemies anywhere.  Does that make Selphie a sorceress too?"

       Squall considered it before grudgingly capitulating.  _Okay, you have a point._

_       "Does any of this help?" Doomtrain asked, relieved that Squall had forgotten about the Malboro tentacle, allowing it to burn itself out._

       Squall hesitated.  _Does the possibility of her not being a sorceress cheer me up?  Why should it?  It was interesting to hear their theory, but that wasn't what was troubling me._

_       Ifrit knew Squall well enough to figure out that this was the "No, it doesn't help" type of silence.  He shifted uncomfortably to another spot of fresh grass, the patch over which he had been standing having been long since reduced to mere cinders._

       "What we're trying to say is that she's just a normal girl, Master.  There is nothing threatening about her," Ifrit finally spoke.  "Don't beat yourself up over it.

       _Rinoa?  A normal girl?  Squall frowned at the suggestion.  __So there is nothing special about her...so what?_

_       Ifrit saw how Squall wasn't cracking, realizing that either that had made the wrong assumption about what was bothering him in the first place, or that this new piece of intelligence had just offered  him something else to worry about._

       Ifrit tried to salvage the situation with, "At least you won't have to concern yourself with people talking about any hypocrisy in the Garden code with the Commander of SeeD hanging around a sorceress for any reason other than sending her to Diablos."

       _I didn't know people were talking about it, Squall noted mentally.  It took him a bit longer to fully digest the issue that Ifrit had just throw down.  _Holy Shiva, he's right!_  __It's my duty to kill her._

_       "But as I said," Ifrit continued after catching Squall's sharp intake of air, "that is something that you don't have to worry about.  We already have enough arguments to keep the Esthar investigators from legally taking Rinoa.  And she will definitely have her father, the General's protection."_

       _That slipped my mind too.  Had it not been for years of training in Balamb Garden, Squall would not have been able to suppress his instinctive urge to slap himself in the head.___

_       A second later he found himself frowning at another point that Ifrit had brought up.  _The General's daughter, that sounds ominous.__

       "I just realized that I hardly know anything about her," Squall announced, shaking his head.

       "I wonder why that is," Cerberus A scoffed, daring to give Squall an accusing look.

       "Don't pretend like you know why that is," Cerberus B chastised his first head.

       _Why is that?  Squall was beginning to wonder._

       "You've never given her a chance," Diablos muttered.

       Apparently it was still audible, and Squall scowled, trying to discern the fiendish GF who had cowered behind his colleagues.

       Cerberus B coughed purposely to break the silence and tried to cool Squall down with, "What he meant was you two were never given the chance.  Every single time it mattered, one or both of you were comatose or running for your lives."

       Squall nodded.  _So long as I'm not responsible._

       Diablos snickered at a joke he had made up in his head.  _Adel got closer to Rinoa than our Master has._

       Squall began to wonder why he should bother trying if every time he did, some disaster would interrupt them.  He was also feeling irked for not having the opportunity to get to know Rinoa; it had nothing to do with whether he chose to go through with it or not, just so he had a choice, that freedom.  He realized that maybe it was more her fault than his.

       _She didn't give me the chance, he thought, _not the other way around.  _She_ was always knocked out, glued to someone else's body, floating in space, or hanging on for dear life.  The moment we do get close at the party, _she_ blew _me__ off.  It was her_ fault, not mine_._

       Having established that he was not at fault and there was nothing special about Rinoa except for the unfortunate fact that she was the General's daughter, Squall could find no reason why he should like her at all.  Her saving him on the return trip from Time Compression in the flower field was the least the could do to compensate for the numerous times he had saved her.  He was actually doing _her the favor if he just called it even._

       _What the-_

_       Had he been smoking that fast?  His cigarette was finished, and he tossed it lazily off the cliff and watched as it haphazardly spiraled down, flitting whichever way it wanted without every really deciding, until it disappeared from view. _

       _Just like that floating golden feather._

       Ifrit watched nervously along with Cerberus B as Squall withdrew further into his ruminations, reaching in his pocket for another joint.  They did not like the look on his face, guessing where his thoughts were leading him.  This was not what they had in mind.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	12. Setting 09: 1856 DAY 15, Balamb Garden S...

Setting 09: 1856 DAY 15, Balamb Garden Subsidiary Corridor 2F 

_"It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;_

_it may be we shall touch the Happy Isles."_

-Tennyson, Alfred Lord

"Ulysses" 62

       _"S_hut up!" Rinoa shouted.  "For the last time, I am _not_ pregnant!"

       She suppressed the urge to lash out at the group of busty girls in Garden Uniform.  Even if she didn't have 100 Death spells junctioned to her blaster edge at the time, it would still feel damn good.  But they were part of the majority of Balamb Garden's junior class, the girls in the Anti-Rinoa club, and she had left her Shooting Star in the back of Squall's Garden-furnished vehicle.  While Squall was around Rinoa, the most they ever dared was a dirty look aimed at her when his back was turned.  However, ever since Squall left to supervise the Nova Trabia reconstruction project, the jealous female group had taken advantage of their dream-date's absence and declared it open season on Rinoa's ass.  

       _If anything, for all I know, I'm almost unkissable, she said to herself miserably.  _Dammit, Squall, why do you have to be so difficult!__

       The girls were taunting her again, vilifying her integrity.  Rinoa knew that each one of these underclasswomen would willing give themselves to Squall to be ravaged and somatically corrupted, and that accusing her of being a tramp made them feel better about themselves.  They had fooled themselves into thinking that being Rinoa was a bad thing, hypocritically never intending to pass up her place should it ever be vacated.

       Rinoa had endured this jeering for two whole weeks, and was on the brink of sending Angelo after her adversaries when she caught herself.  _This isn't lady-like.  Squall would frown at me.  Then again, when have I ever been lady-like?_

       It suddenly occurred to her that if Squall wasn't in Balamb Garden, then she didn't have to behave like a princess, not that she had been, but now she had no excuse to hold back.  The club members must have realized this too and quickly disappeared around the corner, shuffling their feet in harmony.

       Rinoa sighed, bending down to pat Angelo.  _And I thought Bahamut's Red Dragons were bad.  I can't even make twenty steps without running into one of those club members!   _

As tiresome as the frequent, discouraging encounters were, she realized how lucky she was not having to deal with the opposite gender's pro-Rinoa fan club.  Squall had made it infinitely clear by a speaker announcement, discretely while Headmaster Cid was seeing his wife out the Garden gates after the party, that if anyone so much as looked at Rinoa the wrong way, she would be the last thing they ever saw.  Even now all the male SeeDs ducked and ran past her in the halls.  Unfortunately, she could make no such ultimatum, and even if she could, it would not manifest the desired effect.

       Another male SeeD student had stepped out of one of the classrooms a few steps in front of her.  He looked up from his papers and smiled at the scent of her perfume.  His pleased expression quickly melted into a gasp as he ducked back into the lecture chamber.  Squall's words had been very effective.

       She smiled and felt her face burning, just as it had when she heard the announcement from her room.    Her smile turned into a frown when she recalled why she ran to her room in the first place.

       _The least__ he could do was make that announcement, after what he said that night, Rinoa reasoned caustically._  Was he embarrassed to be seen with me, even by his closest friends?__

_       Rinoa didn't like the thought that he wasn't particularly proud of being seen with her.  Even if Squall was naturally diffident, it was no excuse to immediately drop her and put on the embarrassed, "Don't get the wrong idea, Zell, we are just friends" look on his face when Zell caught them in the middle of their first kiss.  It made her feel insignificant, and on top of it all, he had called that magical moment "nothing important."  It made her want to kill him.  At this moment, Rinoa wasn't sure who she would tie up in the future, Zell or Squall._

       _He infuriates me sometimes! she shouted in her head.  __Everything was perfect.  The weather was right, the full moon, the shooting star, and I even had on my lucky socks!  How can anyone ruin that?  I would have given you the world, Squall.  Why did you have to ruin what should have been impossible to ruin?  How can you ruin that?_

_       Rinoa's face fell, instantly assuming the look of a cynic.  __The only way to ruin that is if you're Squall and you say, "It's nothing important."_

_       Rinoa shook her head.  After all, didn't he know that she loved him?  She resumed the face of the unsurprised cynic.  __No, he was too groggy to notice the look on my face when I saved him from Time Compression and revived him in the flower field._

_       Her stomach growled right then, its loudness making her blush._

       _How embarrassing, she thought, taking a quick look around to make sure no one heard.  _I'm glad Squall wasn't here to witness _that._

       She looked down at her stomach crossly.

       It murmured in reply, hinting to Rinoa that maybe the routine purges and forced dieting didn't agree with it.  She stuck her tongue out and taunted her stomach, daring it to defect.  At last it quieted, and she congratulated herself with her victory.  At the same time, though, Rinoa became acutely aware that she was quite famished.

       Putting her hunger aside, Rinoa tried to catch up with her train of thought that had left her at the station.  It took a few seconds to reboot her memory and find the right place to cut in.

       _...Revived him in the flower field...That's what it was.  I was crying my heart out with him in my arms and shaking him because he was alive, but all he did was grunt and tell me to stop because the rocking was hurting his head._

_       Rinoa sniffled.  _He didn't even say, "Thank you for finding me.  I couldn't have made it out without you."__

_       Squall seemed so ungrateful.  She tried to hug him so many times after he saved her from space, and even forced herself onto his lap, just to please him.  He gave the same nonchalant response then, and he hadn't changed a bit._

       _Have I been trying to change him?  Rinoa asked herself.  _Yes, I guess.  Maybe it's wrong of me to ask that of him, but he's too rough on the edges for anyone's good.  __

_       She leaned back against the wall and brushed her dark hair back.  One of the anti-Rinoa girls had just headed out of her class and was walking absent-mindedly past Rinoa.  Rinoa wasn't in the best of moods and took this chance to spin off the wall and purposely rough her rival up with her shoulder.  As expected, Rinoa's shoulder connected with the girl's arm.  Caught off guard, she was inevitably thrown off balance and landed on the ground._

       Rinoa pulled out the same "Watch where you're going" look she had dished at the couple that she and Squall had collided with on the dance floor that night at his SeeD inauguration party.  _I wish my magical hypnosis spell would have worked that night.  I should have danced with him longer, she blamed herself._

       Before her scapegoat could recover and retaliate from her dazed position on the ground, Rinoa scooted into the nearby elevator and hit the button for the first floor.  On the way down, she had to decide between her really nice VIP suite and the cafeteria.   The only thing wrong with her room that she could think of was the monotone voice with which Squall had presented it to her, saying that it was "by protocol a standard issue room to all clientele."  That mechanical comment alone, rife with redundancy, had blasted away all sentiments of either the room or her being special.

       Rinoa marveled at how he could still refuse her while they were alone for that one minute before all the others found them in the flower field.   She was at a loss to explain how he did not want to explore that moment so perfect for passion, perfect for them.  Perfect in every way.

       _He said he was tired, Rinoa recalled spitefully as she stepped off the elevator and made her way back to the dorms._

       So again Squall had botched another perfect setting and moment with his insensitivity.  It was in the same flower field behind Edea's house where they had all agreed before going into Time Compression that they would meet afterwards.  Of course, he had gotten there late, and wouldn't have gotten there at all had it not been for her.  _Was it really that hard to find that green pasture behind Edea's orphanage? Rinoa asked herself._

       At the mention of Edea, she was reminded of how pleasant Cid's wife was at the party.  It wasn't hard for Rinoa to forget all about Mrs. Kramer's former identity as the Sorceress.  She just showed up in her plain, black gown and looked splendid without any superfluous ornaments that would have over-exaggerated her elegance.  She naturally found it hard to believe that Edea was the same woman that everyone had struggled to kill for the past few years.  Her disposition was so innocent now, so easily absolvable, unlike Seifer, whose bloodthirsty countenance was retained even after being freed of "mind control" incriminated him, in her eyes at least.

       His parole officer had granted him a part-time job in the fishing industry after he stuck to his story about being manipulated by Ultimecia who had lured him into her control using his own dream as bait, but Rinoa didn't buy any of that.  Seifer's aspect betrayed the innate darkness within him, and the abusive language he had used to denigrate her relationship with Squall was unforgivable.  The last she heard of him was that he had joined some church group and gone on an archaeological expedition, hoping to find and reform his true self.  At least that was the excuse he used to fool his PO.

       Rinoa was getting a headache just thinking about the man with whom she had had her summer fling.  It just seemed easier to love Edea and place two shares of anger on someone that everyone despised, including herself.  Not only had he delayed her from finding Squall, but he had fed her to Adel and inhumanely tortured the man she did love.  Rinoa felt the steam coming out of her ears and realized that it was healthier to concentrate on something that would not inspire her to fume.  Edea was the sweetest thing she could think of offhand.

       _How sad it was to see Mrs. Kramer leave Balamb Garden, she thought.  __Just as sad as it was touching to see the Headmaster leave the party early and accompany her to her ride outside.  They still seemed so much in love._

_       Then again, they did just rediscover each other, in a way, Rinoa reasoned.  __I wonder how long they had been hoping Squall would come and beat Ultimecia out of her system._

_       Rinoa smiled dreamily.  It was the perfect end to a fairy tale.  _I'm so glad Quistis came by my room after I left the ball and told me to look out my window.  We were both kinda teary-eyed when we saw the Headmaster embrace his wife.  Both our faces also flushed when Squall's announcement sounded over the intercom.__

       She sighed sadly.  _Edea's story might have ended happily ever after, but my princess story is still a tragedy._

_       On second thought, she corrected herself after re-evaluating the Edea's situation, __I hope I don't end up like that.  If every sorceress bride of the highest authority in Garden ends up by herself, watching an empty orphanage and wishing that she had children of her own, I might have to reconsider how far I should push Squall to commit._

_       Her stomach interrupted her brooding with a lion-like roar this time.  It was so loud that it made her jump.  She giggled nervously, sighing in relief that no one had walked by and heard.  She was sure it would make a delicious addition to the gossip goblet that was passed around and sipped by every loud-mouth anti-Rinoa club member._

       She laughed lightly at how a simple thought, such as a flower field, could instigate so much brain-racking.  She frowned at another realization at the mention of the agreed upon destination of the field.__

       _Why didn't Squall make it to the flower field? Rinoa wondered.  __She had asked everyone else what they went through, and just as she had, it was just a matter of walking through some white screen and suddenly appearing in the field.  What was so hard about that?_

       Her expression darkened.

       _Did he subconsciously not want to make it back?_

_       Rinoa's eyes narrowed._

       _Was he deliberately trying to avoid me?_

       She was just outside her suite with a worried look.

       _Was it something that I did wrong?  But I've been eating a meal and a half since Deling City just so he'd find me less chunky and more attractive!  Dr. Kadowaki said three weekends ago that I was too underweight to be healthy, but I know he'll like me even less if I start gaining weight.  But he couldn't even find his way to a pasture for me, and even decided to blow me off instead of Zell on the balcony!  Was it something I did?  I must have displeased him somewhere.  Why is he distancing himself from me?_

_       Her stomach growled again, and she laughed, dismissing the thought that anyone, even Squall, would want to blow her off or avoid her.  All the evidence before her in Garden was that even man would die for her, not die just to avoid her.  Coming to this conclusion, and feeling more growls heading up her esophagus, she decided it would be okay to indulge in some of her favorite chocobolates in the cafeteria._

       Chocobolates were chocobo-shaped candies made from the milk of a rare mammalian strain of chocobos and chocolate.  She hadn't had any for the same reason why she had cut down on her food intake, but she figured there was no reason to fast while Squall was so far away.  Besides, the trip she was about to make this afternoon to Trabia would definitely offer enough exercise to put her back into shape.  She would just have to remember not to eat too many in the next few minutes, otherwise he would notice how fat she was getting and not want to hug her.

       As she made her way to the cafeteria, she felt a bit foolish for doubting herself and questioning Squall's feelings for her. 

       _You're so dumb, Rinoa,__ she scolded herself.  _Why am I so dumb, getting caught up about all this?  Dumb, dumb, dumb.__

_       A flashback hit her so hard that she nearly lost her footing.  It was what her mother had told her when she was a child.  Rinoa remembered it clearly, one of the few lessons that she committed to memory because she had always been curious about it.  Julia had told her, "There is no such thing as dumb girls.  There are only lucky and unlucky girls.  The unlucky ones are just dumb more often."_

       If her mother was right, then Rinoa had been stupid twice already, once on Seifer, the second time on Squall.  There was no way she was going to allow herself to be duped a third time, so she had to make the most out of Squall.  Her face hardened as she strode past another group of anti-Rinoa members.  They were too absorbed in their conversation about Squall to notice her, and she reddened at the realization of how accurately it reflected Squall's own self-infatuation that seemed to take all his attention away from her.__

       There were no chocobolates in the cafeteria.  The matronly serveuse was so used to Rinoa seeing Rinoa come in and go out empty handed that she would not allow the skinny girl to walk away today in the same manner.  Rinoa was at last persuaded to sit down and have a sandwich for dinner.  The hotdogs, of course, were scarce in supply, but there was an abundance of fresh burgers.  She sat down at an empty table by the corner and tried to draw as little attention as possible.

       Even if the burger had been prepared by the finest chef in Balamb, it would have still tasted stale to lonely Rinoa as she munched monotonously away.  She glanced around the room quickly and envied all the other couples that were dining together, and blamed herself for being so hotheaded on the balcony.  After all, it wasn't Squall who imposed the two week hiatus in their relationship, if there was one.  During his announcement over the intercom, he hadn't specified that she _couldn't tag along.  She just assumed it was better to let things cool down by waiting two weeks before visiting the construction site.  Rinoa took another tasteless bite, still not sure what kind of meat her sandwich contained.  It wasn't crunchy enough to be arachnid, not nearly tough enough to be reptilian, nor soft enough to be fish-related.  She shrugged and decided that it was better not to know, her appetite being so weak already._

       Rinoa missed her mother.  If Squall had been there, she would have begun to bawl and tell him what she remembered about her.  As chance would have it, he wasn't sitting right beside her and crying on her own shoulder didn't seem very comely, so she stuffed her emotions back into their hiding place before they had a chance to break out of her restraint.  She didn't realize that she had used Squall as a surrogate mother on their trip back from space, even after she directly compared Squall to Julia.  They were the ones that she associated with comfort and safety, and having rejected her father figure ever since her mother died, Rinoa could not but feel doubly affectionate towards Squall.

       Thinking of her mother and Squall inevitably invited the image of Laguna Loire into her mess of thoughts.  How unexpected it was for Laguna to ask Cid to announce his paternal relation to Squall the moment they returned to Balamb Garden after coming out of Time Compression.  Upon hearing the news, Squall remained speechless and merely shrugged.  However, Rinoa noticed that he locked himself in his room for two hours right before the party.  Usually he brooded while lying on his bed, but it was odd that he should lock his door.  She only found out because she tried the knob before realizing that he probably needed some time to himself.

       _So Julia was Laguna's first lover, Rinoa assessed.  __If he ended up marrying Raine instead of my mother, wouldn't it be a hoot and a half if his son ended up dumping me too for some other Winhill girl?_

_       For a moment Rinoa was glad that the closest thing Raine had to a daughter was Ellone, and there was no way that Squall would run off with her because she was his big "Sis."  Besides, if Laguna's son did drop Julia's daughter and run off with Raine's daughter, it would be incest cause Squall would be dating his foster half-sister to say the least._

       Rinoa made a face and tossed the latter half of her soggy sandwich aside.  It was too complicated, pointless, and downright disgusting to think about, and plus the more she thought, the less aware she was of how much she was eating.  She was actually thankful that this messy, generational love triangle had ruined her meal because had she eaten anymore, she would have definitely put on an extra quarter of a pound, and that would have surely been unacceptable to Squall.  

       _Good job on catching yourself, Rinoa, she encouraged herself.  __You could have been making the biggest mistake of your life._

       Getting up and brushing any stray crumbs that might have mutinously found their way onto her clothes, she headed for the door.  More specifically, she was headed out the door and to her suite to pack.  Two weeks had been longer than expected, and since she was sure that she had missed him more than he missed her, it was about time to pay him a visit.  It bothered her that she would have to apologize to him since he never would, but not enough to keep her from planning the trip in her head on the way back to her room.

       By the time she got there, she had it all figured out.  She wouldn't have to waste time wondering which outfits to pack since she had just bought a spanking new outfit that looked just like the one she usually wore, sitting on top of her hope chest, and all her regular clothes stacked on her bed.  She complimented herself for having the foresight to fold her shirts right after the Garden maids returned them from laundry.  She also had just enough money to buy a boat ticket to the Trabia coastline, rent a car there, and pay for enough gasoline to get her to Nova Trabia.  She was cutting it pretty close on the budget, so more than likely she would have to haggle over the prices, but it would work out in the end, just barely.  It had to.

       She frowned at the curse of poverty.  Being the president of the Timber resistance faction came with the duty of refusing any fiscal aid that the General of the Galbadian army might offer.  Since she had rejected her role as her father's little princess, she was the most impoverished person in Squall's company.  As she was not a SeeD mercenary, she had regular income flow, a fact that she painfully noticed had sparked Squall's annoyance.

       _Regardless, she comforted herself, __they are all still under my command until we liberate Timber.  _

       By this time she had her two suitcases satisfactorily loaded and was about to call for room service to help her lug it down to the Garden garage when a multitude of things occurred to her, including the fact that she would have a hard time locating a bell boy that was willing to step into her room, that any bell girls would purposely take forever to get there and undoubtedly sabotage her luggage once they were on the move, that she would have similar trouble finding any garage boy willing to give her a ride, and that if it meant that it would be less bothersome to everyone else for her to just lug her own bags all the way to Balamb and fight any Bite Bugs that might attack her on the way, with the added bonus of losing those extra milli-ounces she'd just picked up in the cafeteria and staying in shape for Squall, then she might as well do everything herself.

       _Or I could just drop by Squall's room and pick up the all-purpose Garden keys that Cid gave him and drive myself to Balamb.  It's not like his password "Griever" is that hard to guess._

_       Subconsciously she resented that he had picked an imaginary GF to be his password instead of her name, which would have made more since because it saved time to have to punch in and it just plain sounded better.  Dimly Rinoa noted that she would just leave the Garden's car in Balamb until it accrued enough parking tickets that Garden would be notified and Cid would send someone down to retrieve it.  The bill, of course, would go to Squall._

       She ruffled her nose and let a sly chuckle escape through her curled lips.  _Serves him right for not making "Rinoa" his password.  "Rinoa" is such a great name.  Too bad he left Garden's skeleton keys on his desk.  Funny how what he thought he wouldn't need at Trabia and so he left here is going to get me there and earn him a scolding followed by a deduction in wages._

       Rinoa had been thinking so much that she didn't realize that she had already made her way out of the living quarters and into the atrium of the Garden.  She had even walked around the elevator in the middle of the giant chamber and gone down another hall to get to Squall's room before doubling back and circling around the chamber a second time to get to the garage.  The raised fish statues in the fountain ring that surrounded elevator platform gawked at her as she walked past.  The drops from their lips noisily splashed down on the pool's surface, concealing the sound of Squall's keys, jingling inside her pocket from any nosy SeeD passerby.  The stony fish carvings seemed to murmur, "Stupid, stupid, stupid" to her as they continued to spit out water.

       _I have been stupid, Rinoa conceded at last.  There was no reason to deny it.  _I shouldn't have left him standing out there all alone with Zell.  I have to make it up to him.__

_       Every step she took towards the exit added more and more vigor with which she took the next, and she could feel the giddiness taking over her entire body.  As she reached, in her opinion, the choicest car of all those in the  lot in what seemed like no time at all.  _

_       I hope Squall is as eager to see me as I am him, she was thinking._

       So exhilarated was Rinoa that when she climbed inside the vehicle, she did not notice her ambusher, stealthily crouching in the backseat. 

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	13. Setting 10: 1910 DAY 15, Directly over E...

Setting 10: 1910 DAY 15, Directly over Esthar City "Ah, Genoese, a people strange to every 

_constraint of custom, full of all corruption,_

_why have you not been driven from the world?"_

-Alighieri, Dante

_Inferno XXXIII_

       _Q__yQy!  What have you been up to? Specifically directed interrogative and agitation_

       _Are you soliciting an actual answer?  Rhetorical question and smugness_

       _Tell me, because this time, I do not know!  Imperative directive and testiness_

       _Easy there, comrade Mitigating concession, surprise, elliptical imperative directive, and fading effervescence_

       _I am your colleague and I have the same stakes as you in completing this mission by the book  Critical declaration, referential reminder, and implied, imputed warning_

       …  Pause, surprise, and uncertainty

       _I should have been consulted before you made any moves  Critical declaration, indirect plaintive declaration, and anger_

       _My apologies, FeFe, but you were comatose at the time and such a trivial matter did not seem to merit disturbing you  Preplanned explanation, wishful thinking, declaration of self-exculpation_

       _You deem direct interaction with a sample individual without the Carrier's order a trivial matter?  Derisive rhetorical question, implied, imputed warning, and intimated challenge_

       _It does not interfere with the rest of our data collection because no one will know she is missing, including her father, as we both know you already know, on whom we have experimented for quite some time  Mitigating clarification, referential reminder, steadiness, and slight humor_

       _I still think you are out of line  Quasi-patronizing declaration, implied, imputed warning, hint directive, and hesitancy_

       _Just think of it as my gesture to reunite the girl and her father  Mitigating ludicrous explanation, imperative directive, and humor_

       _Unlikely even if were not a lie  Rebuff, false concession, latent affront, and dissatisfaction_

       _Again, I apologize, but at least consider that I have not put her through the testing process yet  Mitigating concession, passive directive, and declaration_

       _Why else would you have 'Archangel' intercept her and take her to the test site?  Specifically directed interrogative, suspicion, and self-satisfaction_

       _Clearly in the interests of the father and daughter's well being and reconciliation did I act  Reflex ludicrous response and feigned benevolence_

       _Right  Scorn and doubt_

       _I made the decision under duress  Mitigating explanation and impeding reminder_

       _From what source?  Interrogative and curiosity_

       _I have learned recently that the two of the specimens have been tailing us  Declaration and pensiveness_

       _You were so sure that they were too primitive to detect us, though  Quasi-dismissal, jeering reminder, and humor_

       _What do you propose we do now to amend the situation?  Sudden interrogative, deliberate deference, and intimated challenge_

       …  Pause, uncertainty, and fruitlessness

       _We both know we can not just set her back where we found her Self-evident, didactic declaration_

       _You did not just happen to 'find her' – you targeted her  Brusque correction and purposive interference_

       _So I did, but I had a reason Preplanned explanation, smugness, declaration of self-exculpation_

       _And what would that be?  Derisive interrogative, information interrogative, and intimated challenge_

       _You already know  Patronizing reminder_

       _Even if your theory that one of their kind kidnapped PuPu is accurate, you need not target an individual so closely associated with the one they call 'Squall'  Critical declaration, false concession, curiosity, latent affront, and dissatisfaction_

       _In the eventuality that our comrade is still alive, I think we should have one of theirs to ransom for his release  Preplanned clarification and intimated challenge_

       _Would not that other girl be enough?  Derisive rhetorical question_

       _Precaution minimizes the unexpected  Didactic quotation, pride, and imbedded excuse_

       _But why the one they call 'Rinoa' out of all the possibilities?  Interrogative, curiosity, and reflex defensive protest_

       _You already know that too  Patronizing reminder_

       _All you have is circumstantial evidence; what makes you so sure Squall was involved in PuPu's disappearance?  Critical interrogative, curiosity, mistrust, and amusement_

       _Turn your attention to the recording  Calm directive and smugness_

       _I have heard it already and noted how ambiguous and inconclusive it is  Reflex dismissal, aloofness, and quasi-patronizing reminder_

       _Turn your attention to our new digital recording  Preplanned explanation, imperative directive, calmness, and high hopes_

       _What is that?  Deferential interrogative, interest, uncertainty, and closer inspection_

       _My attempt to reveal the true, depraved nature of these self-destructive savages  Stalwart declaration, biased opinion, deliberate denigration, and pleasure_

       _My word!  Awareness, shock, and disgust_

       _Yes  Casual acknowledgement and internal revel_

       _The entire lusty band is converging on the one they call 'Quistis'!  Declaration, shock, fading confidence, and internal conflict  _

       _Now is this the behavior of a species at peace with itself?  Rhetorical interrogative, superiority, and self-satisfaction_

       _Unbelievable!  Sudden exclamation, suspicion, internal conflict_

       _Their actions as a group reflect negatively on their leader's character, the one they call 'Squall'  Didactic declaration, stalwart proposition, biased conclusion, and disdain_

       _I never would have guessed  Passive declaration, imbedded concurrence, and resigned admission_

       _The one they call 'Squall' is no less impure at heart; he would have been perfectly capable of abducting, or killing, our comrade  Stalwart declaration, self-assuredness, and accusation with finality_

       _I am still inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt  Earnest opinion, hesitancy, and internal struggle_

       _True innocence reveals itself, and so far his has not done so  Didactic quotation, self-assuredness, and insinuation of stalwart conclusion_

       _I hope you know what you are doing  Earnest opinion, hint directive and implied, imputed warning_

       _We both know I do  Complacent, self-evident declaration and passive reminder_

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

If you didn't catch this in Setting 01, the syntactical structure might seem a bit weird at first glance, because I have a unique method of transcribing what the aliens are communicating.

The "stage directions" after each line they communicates are necessary, and they aren't stage directions; PuPu's alien clan does not communicate with their voices, only their thoughts. They don't have facial expressions either, which means to communicate elements such as sarcasm or emotion, I have to add the "stage directions" and, if you noticed, keep the emotion-denoting punctuation marks (question or exclamation) outside of the brackets.

In actuality, those "stage directions" are called the "pragmatics" of language. The words they actually "speak" are called the "semantics" of language. Because they aren't actually making any sounds with their mouths, I used brackets instead of "quotations" to indicate what they want to communicate with their thoughts. Also, throughout the rest of the story, thoughts are _italicized_ and speech is unmodified. So what the aliens want to communicate show up _like this_.

However, even by including the pragmatics after the semantics, there is still no way I can differentiate for you which alien is which. If they did not greet each other when a third or fourth being waltzed in, or say their respective names in each line, we would have no idea who the addresser and addressee were for any given statement. That is the flaw of indirect narration, I'm afraid, and I will try to find was to rectify it.

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	14. Setting 11: 2018 DAY 15, Trabia Coastbor...

Setting 11: 2018 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Cliffs 

_"It little profits… an idle king,_

_by this still hearth, among these barren crags."_

-Tennyson, Alfred Lord

"Ulysses" 1

       _"I_ don't want to see Rinoa ever again."

       Ifrit nearly coughed up charcoal when he heard that comment come out of Squall's mouth, even though he had seen it coming.  Still, it was his Master's final decision, and he would not dare to meddle with it.

       "That's the spirit," Diablos cheered with some enthusiastic clapping.

       "Not ever?" Cerberus B questioned, still hopeful that they could turn the grievous mistake in Squall's reasoning.

       Diablos quickly ducked into one of Doomtrain's random dining cars and pulled one of the speakers off from the dilapidated and rotting walls, and then he slipped into the car where the CD player for the entire intercom system was hooked.  Instantly Cerberus B's argument was drowned out by the speaker that was blasting out the heavy orchestra music of "Liberi Fatali."  Briefly he wondered if anyone had the English translation of the lyrics.

       Doomtrain fumbled around before finally turning off all the peripheral lines of power in his system, putting the speaker system out of commission and throwing Diablos out of the train.

       "Well, at least not for awhile.  I have to think," Squall continued after awhile.

       "Act on instinct, boss," Diablos chimed in, "because then you will be doing what your heart tells you, and that can't be wrong."

       Ifrit saw past the good-natured guise of the demonic GF's ill-advised suggestion; in their present situation, Squall was not in the right mind for anything except to fool himself, and Diablos knew it.  Cerberus A and C did not see the harm in taking Diablos' proposal at face value and did not think enough to search for the evil intention behind it.  They began murmuring in approval which, to Ifrit's horror, gave Diablos the encouragement he needed to be extra boisterous and delude himself into thinking that his input was actually solicited.

       _If you didn't like hell so much, I'd send you there, Ifrit meditated._

       Cerberus B could guess where Ifrit was headed, and subtlety motioned for him to stand down.  _After all, Cerberus B reasoned, _Diablos _is_ doing his job of guarding the Master, even if he _does_ prefer killing Rinoa then bringing them together so the Master has one less thing to worry about in his off time.  I'm sure while Diablos may be flawed, but he is still a decent creature on the inside.__

       "Do you want me to kill her for you?" Diablos asked Squall eagerly, refreshing his earlier offer.  Squall, had, by then, Diablos noted, rested his head in his palm and was rubbing one of his eyes wearily in the face of the setting sun.

       _Never mind, Cerberus B corrected himself._

       Squall had the "I heard you the first time" look but didn't comment.

       _Does it really matter? Squall thought in response to Diablos' question.   He surprised himself, but he was could not tolerate another second of mulling over the same prosaic topic.  His first reaction would of course be to take the first and easiest solution._

       "Sure," Squall finally replied, realizing how indulging in this outrageous idea would take his mind off the subject and offer him a temporary sanctuary from the confusion he felt.

       The fact that none of the GFs had entertained in the idea, save Diablos, that their Master would go along with a joke of such ineffable nature and that all of them had grown accustomed to Squall's barely speaking at all was blatantly obvious to him when he looked back and saw them all staring in stunned disbelief.  

       For some reason though, the idea that they were shocked tickled him, and he shrugged internally.  _At least I'll get a few seconds of silence with that answer._

       He caught himself sporting a rare smile and slipped back into his usual grim, uninterested expression, his eyes darting around instinctively to make sure no one saw him slip.

       Doomtrain decided that he would ignore Squall's acceptance of Diablos' offer and continued, "So is that it, then?  You are just going to walk away from her?"

       "How does that make you feel, turning your back on a girl who saved you from Time Compression?" Ifrit asked, giving Squall a hostile, verbal poke.

       "How could she save me if she was a normal girl?" Squall countered without flinching.

       "That's even more reason to go after her, because she's so special," Cerberus B concluded, hoping this last argument would settle the case.

       Squall shook his head and crushed the cigarette butt in his hand.

       "Precisely because she isn't normal.  Probably only a sorceress could have tracked me down in the post-Ultimecia time-compressed netherworld," he rejoined with renewed conviction.

       "How did she manage to save you by the way?" Ifrit asked, crossing his arms.

       "Yeah, Master," Cerberus C agreed, "you never bothered to tell us."

_       There was this golden feather that appeared out of nowhere and I touched it._

       "Sorcery," Squall quickly responded, dismissing his previous thought.__

       "That's it?  Plain and simple?" Cerberus B questioned skeptically.

       "That's what sorceresses do, isn't it?" Squall replied smartly.

       "So what if she's a sorceress?  She still saved your life!" Ifrit snapped.

       "I thought we explained this to you already.  Rinoa does not qualify to be anything except a girl.  And one that loves you too," Doomtrain supplemented.

       "What do you know about love?" Squall shot back.  "When was the last time _you_ went on a date, Doomtrain?"

       "Doesn't it mean anything to you that she found you?" Cerberus B asked quickly, deciding that they had digressed.  "Did you ever think about that?"

       "Yeah, well maybe I didn't want to find her!"  Squall shouted, slamming his fist into the ground.

       When none of the GFs responded, he felt confident enough to add another quip just to let his answer sink in even heavier.  "Did you ever think about that?"

       He thought about saying something else, but decided against voicing it.  _Maybe I didn't want to be found._

       The GFs were speechless, and coming up short with any new points.

       "That can't be how you truly feel," Cerberus B said with a concerned look spreading across his jaws.

       Squall narrowed his eyes and focused on the orange horizon, determined not to answer.  _What right do you have to ask me how I feel?  I don't have to justify my actions to you!  I've never asked you how you felt, so why should you give an Ifrit about what I think?_

       "What about all those things you said to her along the railroad at sunset, and in the Balamb infirmary while she was out cold?" Ifrit pointed out.

       Squall froze, his mind still registering what was just said.

       "You forget that some of us were junctioned to you while you carried Rinoa to Esthar on foot," Ifrit reminded him.

       Squall colored.  _No one was supposed to hear that!_

       "I know that conversation you had out of Fisherman's Horizon was private, but you can't really turn off a GF's hearing," Cerberus B added.

       "If you are so concerned with her mysterious ability to find men, why don't you all help her find herself a man," Squall retorted bitterly.  _Before this day ends I am going to shove Amnesia Greens down each one of your throats!_

       "She already found one," Cerberus B said plainly, "but he's been rather distant."

       Squall was silent.

       "You saw what happened on the balcony," he began to justify himself.  "_She_ left me-"

       "He wasn't talking about you," Ifrit clarified.

       Squall initiated a motion to spin around, but faltered in the middle of it, finally settling with keeping his head facing straight forward.

       "Just testing you," Ifrit admitted a second later, "and if shows that you still care."

       "I don't need you to test me," Squall growled angrily.  _Testing you is my job, not the other way around.  Get with the program._

       "My job as your Guardian Force is to prevent you from making the biggest mistake of your life by throwing away-"

       "Your job is to do what I tell you to do," Squall reminded, cutting into Ifrit's lecture.  "Besides," he added, "If you like her so much, why don't you chase after her?"

       "I would if it was in my job description," Ifrit returned.

       "Watch it.  I don't like your tone of insubordination, Ifrit," Squall cautioned.

       "Well, I do a little more than block pot shots meant for you from the enemy," Ifrit remarked.

       "If you have so many other vocational skills, why don't you make yourself useful and go braid Rinoa's hair or something," his Master rebuked condescendingly.

       "You know just as well as I do that Rinoa doesn't braid her hair," Ifrit replied.

       Squall blinked.  _She doesn't?  Guess that shows how well I know her._

       "Hell, the last person that touched her head ended up in the infirmary for three weeks, but

she would instantly drop her aversion towards braiding if you asked her to," Ifrit commented.  _Guess that shows how well you know her._

       Ignoring Ifrit's last comment, Squall said, "I didn't know Rinoa was disinclined to doing that."

       "Of course you wouldn't," Ifrit continued smoothly, as if he had been expecting Squall to say that.  "You were spending too much time trying to learn as little as possible about how the world really works."

       "What makes you think you can preach to me?  What do you know about life?  You're just an entity that steals our memories that offer you a vicarious tap to the real world," Squall accused the GF, trying to undermine his credibility in order to dodge the personal attack.

       "Actually, Master," Ifrit corrected, "we GFs earn experience and level up by ourselves.  We don't really need you to teach us how the world works with your second-hand scraps of knowledge." 

       "You have to admit that since you memory–ripping GFs _are in the business of robbing parts of my past from me," Squall parried defensively, "you can't blame me for not recalling if Rinoa has ever worn her hair differently." _

       Ifrit feigned an absent-minded look.  "I was not aware that those memories of the past were of any value to you since you obviously don't care about nurturing the present.  And taking a few antiquated moments from your life isn't our _business, and it__ isn't how we learn things.  We have AP points each battle to teach us new tricks."_

       "But in _all_ your confident wisdom, I'm sure you realized _that_," Ifrit abrasively added in afterthought.  "Or did you forget that _too_?"

       "If you hadn't leeched it from my mind-" Squall began.

       "You can't always hide under that excuse, Master," Ifrit cut in.  "At least try to open up and give Rinoa a chance.  Besides, we both know that I can't steal every image in your head with Rinoa's hair done the exact same way every time."

       "What would you rather me do?" Squall yelled, a mile past exasperation.  "Go around wearing a white napkin tucked under my chin with a gay, blue ribbon bow-tied around my neck, and cufflinks for the hell of it?  Why not just add a leash and collar with a tag that says, 'I am Rinoa's slave'?  Hey, and while I'm at it, I might as well go dye my hair blonde and buy blue pants with fake tails nailed on their backs."

       His audience was so silent that they could almost hear the Snow Lions braying in the distance.  Diablos finally raised his hand, beckoning for permission to speak.  Stepping forwards slightly, he coughed artificially and put in, "I think I speak for everyone here when I say I don't have the slightest clue what you are talking about."__

Cerberus C was laughing uncontrollably before Cerberus B gave him a look that suggested that it wasn't meant to be a joke.

       Cerberus A wagged his tail nervously before saying aloud, "I think you are overreacting."

       "But hey," Diablos cut in, "if you still want to go with the hair-dying idea, you should get it done gray, like Sephiroth."

       "Who?" Cerberus B asked, knowing he was opening a door to yet another ludicrous topic.

       "Sephiroth," Diablos repeated, "from this video game I found hidden in the Garden online tutorial."

       "I wasn't aware that the Garden facilities were open to GFs," Squall mentioned, visibly unhappy with Diablos' mooching.

       Diablos tried to pull off the most innocent smile he could, excusing himself with, "I just saw Zell playing it a few times.  He's a 'Final Fantasy VII' fanatic."

       Diablos wiggled his fingers agitatedly.

       "On a side note," he added, "this is precisely why we should have GF-protection laws to circumvent this kind of discrimination."

       "You're never going to sell that idea off to Cid," Squall said.

       "What kind of a name is 'Final Fantasy'?" Cerberus A asked with a frown.

       "I think the most important question is how in the world it garnered enough interest to engender six sequels," Doomtrain spoke up.

       "Come on, guys," Diablos pleaded, "don't diss my favorite game.  And you have to admit that 'Final Fantasy VII' is a better title than the foreign RPG called 'Space Warriors VII.'"

       "Hey!" Cerberus C exclaimed.  "I've heard of that game before!  It's the one with a girl named Tifa in it, right?"

       Diablos shrugged, replying, "I only play games in English."  __

       "This is getting us nowhere," Ifrit muttered, rubbing his temples.

       "So remind me again, Ifrit," Squall stated, plainly frustrated himself, "why you are so concerned about her."

       "I'm not concerned about Rinoa," Ifrit replied.  "You are my priority, and it's my duty to tell you that you aren't helping yourself by rejecting new components that might prove to more beneficial if integrated into that tiny, insecure world of yours." 

       "You are making too big a deal out of a girl.  And a client at that!" Squall pointed out.

       "She has got to be more than a client," Ifrit stated flatly.

       "Yes," Squall agreed, taking no time to think, "she's way more nosey." 

       "She isn't nosey," Ifrit explained slowly, "she just cares about you and wants to understand you."

       "I never asked her to care about me, so why should she expect me to care about her?" Squall countered stubbornly.

       "A more selfless person would not cower under moral obligation," Ifrit reprimanded.

       "What obligation?" Squall exploded, throwing his hands up and tossing his finished cigarette away.  "It's an option, and the world isn't going to end if I refuse."

       "At least go find yourself some other girl then, if you won't have Rinoa," Ifrit insisted.

       "Bad move, Ifrit," Cerberus B chided, pulling his fellow GF aside.

       "To Diablos with propriety, and I'm sorry if Rinoa is expendable, but I'm not about to lose another Master," Ifrit explained quietly in Cerberus B's ear but with an unusual evenness in his voice.

       All three Cerberuses decided it better not to inquire about Ifrit's previous Master.  Doomtrain and Diablos both frowned, but similarly kept their mouths shut.

       "I've watched him squander his potential for too long.  Rinoa isn't the only girl who's ever going to have a shot; there are tons of girls in Balamb Garden that want him, so why push him when he clearly doesn't want any part of it?" Ifrit hissed at the other GFs, but mindful of keeping his voice below Squall's auditory range.

       "You're starting to talk like him, now," Doomtrain noted calmly.  "Besides, he doesn't know what he wants right now."

       "Oh, and you know what he wants?  Some mystical inner voice speaks to you and tells you what others are thinking," Ifrit mocked.

       "Why are you defending him when you know he's wrong?" Cerberus B asked critically.

       "Because I have a job to do, and so long as my Master ends up with a healthy lifestyle that might include some girl that he is actually happy with, for a change, then I've done my job well and I can pat myself on the back," Ifrit answered quickly as if on cue.

       Cerberus B looked at Doomtrain for support, but the latter was actually seriously considering the point Ifrit just made.  Diablos was always ready to support the dissenting underdog, and seeing how the other two, weaker-minded Cerberuses were vacillating, Ifrit convincingly pointed at the depressed Squall, slumped in his mental swamp of turmoil.

       "Does it look like we're doing a good job?" Ifrit ridiculed, raising his voice slightly.  "Logically, I would say that we are doing something wrong."

       "Don't get sarcastic with me," Cerberus mouthed.  "We're in the middle of the problem.  Something is happening.  You can't just let him throw that away."

       "Throw what away?" Ifrit returned.  "In case you haven't noticed, that shroud of depression that is always clinging on him like it is part of his skin is no accident.  And we could help him take it off or try to get him to see why it's good for him to be depressed all day long and try to make him come to terms with why he should appreciate Rinoa the shroud.  I'm looking for the most expedient way to get the Master out of this emotional stagnation and onto the next phase in his life.  We are wasting valuable time here, and I don't know what _you're_ priority is, but I'm actually trying to accelerate his psychological development instead of pissing him off and inhibiting his coming to terms with himself by keeping him locked in an unpleasant past that he just might not give a Shiva about!"

       Diablos whistled.  "That was one hell of a monologue, buddy!  You got my vote."

       He chuckled and unleashed a wicked grin.  "Let's smoke her!"

       Cerberus B  glanced agitatedly at Squall, who still hadn't looked up, and then slapped Diablos with one of his paws.

        "Just look how long it has taken him to reach this point.  He was entirely closed off before 

Rinoa began to crack that obstinate shell of his," Cerberus B pressed on, hoping to win over the last few unsure spectators.

       "He wasn't entirely depressed before Rinoa began to crack his shell, as you call it," Ifrit rebuffed.  "And what glorious point of improvement has he reached?  I don't believe he's ever been in a deeper trance of consternation!"

       Cerberus A nodded, sensing that Ifrit had the upper hand in this argument.  The movement annoyed Cerberus B, who fell silent.

       "Haven't you noticed that our Master hasn't said a word through this entire discussion?  He is so centered on himself now, more withdrawn than ever because Rinoa has driven him so much farther into his shell, because she threatens him when she tries to get close and invade his personal space," Ifrit brought to all the GFs' attentions.

       Seeing that Cerberus C, his last hope, was more interested in biting and inspecting his nails, Cerberus B sighed, shook his head, and set himself down in capitulation.

       Diablos took this chance to nudge Ifrit in the stomach and whisper conspiratorially, "You mentioned Shiva in that heated speech a moment ago.  Was that a conscious choice because you are still irked from her shooting you down on your last date?"

       Ifrit was used to Diablos meddling, but today's frenzied sequence of events had peeved him so much that he pushed Diablos back a few steps and warned him, "I don't know what you are talking about.  As if you didn't already know, I can't even touch her without melting her."

       "Hey, if you don't want her, I'll take her any time," Diablos offered amicably.

       He didn't fool Ifrit for a second.

       "Do you have any idea how old Shiva is?" Ifrit asked.  "I think she's out of your league."

       "GFs are like wine; they get better with age," Diablos chuckled.

       Doomtrain's wheels suddenly creaked back to life, and Diablos paused at the sound of the labored by steadily accelerating engine.  He slowly rolled over to the edge of the cliff next to Squall.

       "Need help, Master?" the locomotive GF huffed with fumes pouring from his mouth whenever it opened.

_       Yes, I do.  I, Squall Leonhart, need help._

       "No, I don't," Squall answered.

       "I meant with the Malboro cigarettes," Doomtrain rephrased.

       Squall looked down on the ground next to him and saw what Doomtrain was talking about.  Over ten cigarette butts were lying around, which surprised him.

       Has it really been this long?  I thought I was on my second! 

       "My regular attack is the equivalent of a few packs of those things, so if you want to get a real high in record time, just call," Doomtrain puffed.

       "Hey!  I don't tell _you when not to smoke," Squall argued._

       "Calm down, chief," Doomtrain said, easing off a bit, "I just want to help."

       "Go help someone who needs it then," snapped Squall caustically.

       "I'm trying," was the cool reply.

       "Let's play a game.  We'll call it 'Quiet Time,' okay?" Squall spelled out for him patronizingly. "This is when I take time to gather my thoughts."

       "Care to share your thoughts?" Doomtrain continued, undaunted.

       "I think alone," was the SeeD Commander's unequivocal answer.

       "Then you're alone," Doomtrain concluded sadly.

       Lowering his head slightly, he put his engine in reverse, and faded out of view.

       _I didn't formally dismiss you yet, but whatever, Squall noted and mentally shrugging._

       He took in another deep breath and exhaled the smoke slowly.  He did not notice Cerberus B pull Cerberuses A and C away as well, nor Ifrit's exit, following the example.

       It was like an unplanned but mutually-understood funeral procession that delighted Diablos, the only onlooker.  Suddenly his grin receded as a gust of wind blew by, and his head jerked in attention.  After a moment, he flashed a nefarious smile and licked his lips, the frequency of his wing flapping boosted.

       "Oh, I smell Quistis," he whispered sneakily.  "A dash of rose, some vanilla, and something I can't quite place my finger on."

       Squall heard him and ordered, "You can't place my finger on any part of her, got it?"

       "Do you want me to go into stealth mode so she can't see me?" Diablos asked, ignoring the command.

       "I'd prefer it if you just left," Squall replied, not wasting any time by mincing words.

       Not chagrinned, Diablos chortled quietly and prepared to obscure his own visibility, entertaining in the thought of getting close to Quistis without her knowing. 

       "I'm not kidding, Diablos," Squall continued gravely, "don't try to frisk her while you're in stealth mode.  "You remember how that G-Returner nearly couldn't revive you after what she did to you the last time you tried to pull a stunt like that?"  _I don't care what you got a glimpse of._

       "Thank you for the warning, chief," Diablos hissed back, licking his lips.  "I'll wait until she junctions me then."  _But you should have seen what I got a glimpse of!_

       After Squall heard the revolting sounds of Diablos' self-liquefaction what categorically accompanied every one of his transformations out of the human visibility spectrum, he laid down on his back and put his hands under his head as a cushion.

       _Maybe if I get down low enough she won't see me._

       "Ha!" a cheery voice called out, no more than ten meters away.  "I finally caught you!"

       _Dammit!  Diablos take you!  It didn't work._

       "Good for you," Squall replied with a purposely over-exaggerated giddiness in his voice.

       _Isn't there some place I can hide?_

_       Quistis squatted down and tried to initiate a friendly conversation, hoping that Squall would respond.  _I wonder if he'll notice my new outfit.__

       "Wow, I had no idea the snowfield was so pleasant in the summer!" she exclaimed in a blatant effort to start a conversation.

       _Probably not, considering_, she answered her own question sourly.

       Squall rolled his eyes, still facing the sky.  _Shoot!  No place to hide.  Guess I have to listen then._

_       "How did you know I was here?" he asked, obviously irritated._

       "You always come out here to be alone," Quistis defended herself.  "Is there any way that I could somehow make myself _not _know?"

_       Squall shrugged and acted defeated._

_       Quistis looked around, rubbing her arms apprehensively as she asked, "Is Diablos lurking around here again?"  _Come on, Shiva, hunt that bastard Diablos down.__

_       Squall shrugged.  _Do I have to listen?  Oh, wait!  Those clouds over there look mighty interesting.__

       Diablos shook his head.  He would have whistled had he not known that she would have caught on instantly.  _Knowing Quistis, she probably has Shiva filtering through the entire spectrum just to catch me._

_       That meant that he would have to work extra hard and continue switching through frequencies himself.  It was not easy to do, and Quistis had probably counted on making Diablos exert himself so much that he would have little time to enjoy the view._

       After some careful consideration though, the demonic GF was almost entirely convinced that whistling would be worth it.  _If Squall would just turn and look at her, Great Eden!_

_       Even though Squall had not paid a penny's worth of attention to her yet, Quistis straightened out her matching white shirt and shorts. _

       "I guess I am sort of pale.  Maybe I should spend some time away from Shiva," she commented aloud.  There was a musical ring to her voice, like always.

       Squall had no intention of replying, but the ensuing silence became so heavy that he at last acknowledged her rambling with a grunt.

_       I don't think he's a man.  Diablos pondered bemusedly.  _There must be something wrong with him if he doesn't fall dead at first sight.  She's gorgeous!__

       Squatting had become tiresome for her so Quistis ventured forth and took a seat right beside Squall, virtually on his arm just to make sure he noticed.

       Squall shifted uncomfortably in response, but didn't push her off.  _What now?_

_       Quistis eyed him for a few seconds, inadvertently disclosing her delight at his choice of street clothes.  _That orange and black shirt is pretty cute.__

       "I see I'm not the only one who's trying out a new wardrobe," she said cheerfully, determined not to let the conversation drag.  She was encouraged by the fact that Squall hadn't pulled away, and so, taking the initiative, she bent down dangerously close to Squall's face and stared straight into his eyes.  _Squall in baggy jeans with the legs rolled up?  I never would have guessed._

       Diablos wiped the purple drool coming down his chin.  _Look at those legs!_

       "You clocked out rather early today," she whispered conspiratorially.

       "Yeah, so?" he replied belligerently.

       "Oh, nothing," Quistis responded evenly, "just getting the ceremonial small talk out of the way."

       "Well, if that's all you wanted, then you can go now and feel satisfied that you've managed it well," Squall told her, patronizing as ever.

       "I didn't search all throughout Garden and finally come out here for you just to make small talk," Quistis spelled out for him.

       "Okay, you got me," Squall grumbled crossly, "so now what do you want?"  _Say you want me to leave.  Say you want me to leave…_

_       "I want you to take me seriously," Quistis implored.  __We're not on the script anymore!  Shiva, what do I do?  Don't panic.  Don't panic…_

       "Is that it?" he asked with indifference, never once blinking during the entire time she had her eyes locked on his.

       "Yes, please don't refuse me this," Quistis begged.

       "Okay, I'm glad we had this talk.  Bye now," Squall snapped after pretending to consider it.

       He thought it was about time that he actually put some effort into moving her so he unlocked his fingers from behind his head and started getting up.  Apparently Quistis wasn't convinced that the conversation was over because she leaned over, putting her weight on her arms to pin his head down with his hands still beneath it.  His expression suggested genuine surprise mixed with mild annoyance, but she had stopped caring.

       "Serious, seriously," Quistis repeated.  _Good one, Quistis.  I'm sure that sounded really smooth to everyone else too._

       Diablos shook his head.  _Great Eden!  Just look at her, you fool! _

       Squall repeated, "I told you already.  This conversation is over," and tried to sit up again.

       Realizing how precarious it was for her to put all her weight on one side of Squall when he could just easily take advantage of her awkward balance and shift her aside, Quistis decided the only thing for her to do was to straddle him and grab his wrists.

       "We're not through yet," she declared, her voice faltering slightly.

       For a moment no one said anything.  Diablos was too stunned to continue swapping frequencies, but he was sure that Shiva would be so dumbfounded by this turn of events that she would undoubtedly stop hunting for him.

       "You know this isn't infringing at least seventeen SeeD regulations in the manual," Squall cautioned, even though he had a feeling it wasn't going to make much difference.  Even though she was now flat on top of him and it would prove difficult to throw her off, she was pretty light and benching her would not be impossible.

       "Yeah, so?" Quistis retorted, using Squall's own words against him.  _I should know.  I helped write parts of that manual._

       He saw that too, and the frown he had been wearing for a while wearing darkened.  _If you didn't smell so good I'd tell you to drop dead and get out of my face._

       "The Disciplinary Committee is going to have your rear for this," he daunted.

       It was an idle threat, and both of them knew it.

       "That doesn't scare me," she rebuffed.  "Does it scare you?"

       "What do you mean?" Squall questioned.

       "That Seifer might have me at his mercy," replied Quistis.  _I should have known you would have chosen to act dumb._

       "Seifer's not on the committee anymore," Squall said.

       "Then you have nothing to worry about," she stated simply.  _Insensitive prick._

       "Who said I was worried?" Squall asked.

       She felt like choking him, and she would have if she didn't adore him.  _Hyne help me!_

_       "You cared enough about her when you fought past Seifer to save her," she pointed out indignantly._

_       Quistis nearly choked on something as she finished that sentence.  There was an awkward feeling tugging on her inside, both liberating and restraining at the same time._

       "Maybe I shouldn't have been so hotheaded," Squall conceded, to the amazement of Quistis.  It was clear diminution of Rinoa's importance to him.

       "You don't mean that!" she pressed.  _She was the only one who ever got a real reaction from you._

_       She could feel her heart beating slightly faster._

_       "You've been staring into my eyes for the past five minutes.  Do they look as if they are kidding?" Squall pointed out firmly._

       "What about jumping into outer space to save her?" Quistis asked.  _Why am I trying so hard to defend Rinoa?  Because she's a friend, I have to remember that._

       Squall paused before finally uttering, "Now _that_ was just stupid."

       Quistis was about to argue with him, but she could not fight all the parts of her body screaming, "This is your chance!  You finally have him alone and available, don't talk about someone else!"

_       But I can't just back-stab her like this, she censured herself._

       "Can we talk about something else?" Squall said at last, giving in.

       Quistis smiled and nodded.  _So I got him!  He's finally willing to talk._

       At the same time, she let out a sigh of relief, realizing that she couldn't force herself to talk about Rinoa for much longer.  _Now to think up a new topic…_

       "You know, I can't even smell Diablos' stench," Quistis noted lightly and glanced around.

_       Sorry, honey, Diablos smirked, _I won't make that mistake again.  I prepared ahead of time with the grass-scented cologne.__

       Squall shrugged and took that chance to lean up a bit and get a second whiff of her scent. _Diablos was right_, he reflected, _she has a on a_ _dash of rose, some vanilla, and something I can't quite place my finger on._

       He wasn't quick enough though, and Quistis caught him as he unwittingly laid his head back down.  She pretended not to notice what he had done, but she couldn't suppress a sudden blush.

       "What was that?" she asked shyly.

       "What was what?" Squall shot back in denial.

       "Okay," she said amiably, letting him off the hook, "just checking."  _My ass that was nothing._

       "So why are you here?" he asked hastily, deciding that this was a good time to change the subject.

       "Well, I came out to find you," she answered.

       "That was a given," he huffed.  "Was there something in particular that you wanted?"

       Quistis eyed him for a while before catching herself.  She blushed, becoming self-conscious, and looked away quickly.

       "I meant to talk about," Squall added, hoping that she didn't get the wrong idea, even though it was painfully obvious to both of them that he was a step late.

       "How about why you treat me like dirt," Quistis suggested bluntly, remembering her original intention.  This hadn't been how she and Shiva had talked it over, but she had gone so far in the confrontation that it seemed a waste to squander it being polite now.

       "I always thought dirt liked it on the bottom," Squall retorted wittily.

       "As you can probably tell, you thought wrong," she shot back icily.

       "So, Quistis, I guess the question is why you are treating me like dirt," Squall said.

       "I just wanted to let you know how it feels," Quistis snapped, trying as hard as possible to be mean.

       "Well as far as I can tell, it feels great," Squall answered playfully.

       "No, seriously," she pleaded, giving his upper chest a few quick but serious raps.  He coughed and threatened to pull his gun-blade out of its case if she didn't stop, which of course they both knew he had left back in his room.

       "Why don't you just say it?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

       "Say what?" he rejoined, honestly confused.  _Is she honey-scented too?_

       "Why you never say how you feel," Quistis pressed him.

       "I told you just now, didn't I?" he argued.  _Come on, I know this.  What is she wearing?_

       "But you don't usually," Quistis reflected bitterly.  "Usually you just ignore me."

       "Must be the shirt," Squall invented.

       Quistis looked down at her white outfit, visibly pleased with herself.

       _I meant my shirt, but whatever, Squall thought._

       "But it seemed like you resented me, or loathed me," Quistis continued.

       "That's because you wasted five full minutes of my time that I could have very well spent somewhere else.  That's five minutes of my life that I will never get back, Quistis."

       "I've been sitting on top of you for the past five minutes," she pointed out.  "Did you have something better to do?"

       "In my humble opinion," Squall replied smoothly, "these past five minutes were well spent."

       Quistis blushed and tried to find the next thing to say.  She settled with, "So because of those five minutes you haven't felt like talking to me at all?"

       "That and because you always pulled me away from Seifer, never telling him to stop first," Squall griped.

       "It shows for whom I cared more," she explained.

       "I don't need your concern," Squall told her.  _And I don't need you_.

       "I can't exactly switch it off on command, Squall," she emphasized.

       He shrugged, saying, "Whatever.  I don't need it."

       Quistis made a face, but eventually guessed what Squall really meant.  _At least he didn't say, "I don't need you."_

       "You just don't want to feel obligated to care for others in return," she charged.

       Squall didn't reply, which meant either she was right, or he wasn't listening. 

       "Well, don't worry," she assured him, "you're off the hook.  I don't need you to care for me."

       Squall hadn't replied, even though he was still looking at her.  This meant either she was really right or he was falling asleep.

_       He's faking, she decided._

       "I know you hear me, Squall," she said, giving him a push, "and you can't fool me with your 'I don't need anybody' façade, because that's crap!"

       Squall didn't say it, but she knew he was thinking the same thing about her speech.

       "Do you honestly think that you've totally grown into the 'Sis, I can take care of myself' mentality over the years like some old trousers?"

       _That's none of your business, now is it? Squall thought angrily, but still careful not to flex a single muscle in his face._

       "I have news for you, Squall," Quistis went on, "those trousers are falling apart, and every patch is just another mark of insecurity and self-consciousness."

       _I am not__ self-conscious, and I can_ take care of myself._ _

       "Is that why you can't stand having the sole responsibility for anything, Squall, like making choices for all the SeeDs?" she poked.

       _I'm responsible for myself, isn't that enough?_

       "Is it because you don't want to let anyone down, like Ellone let you down?" she ventured.

       Why don't you mind your own business?        "Is that why you didn't try to stop Esthar from taking Rinoa when she voluntarily capitulated, because you didn't want to interfere with her choice, and because you were afraid to make a choice for her?"        I'm never afraid!  he would deny.  You don't know what you're talking about!        "Well you flunked that one, Squall," Quistis chided.  "It wasn't just any choice, it was the right choice that you failed to make for her."        I had nothing to do with that, so don't push that crap on me! 

       "Do you know what being chicken-wuss means, Squall?" Quistis asked.

       _Don't even go there, his eyes cautioned her._

_       "Running from the consequences isn't chicken-wuss," Quistis explicated, "it's cowardice.  Refusing to make a decision because you don't want to accept the consequences, expecting someone to step in eventually and make the call, and avoiding confrontation, especially about yourself, now __that is just plain chicken-wuss."_

       Squall exploded, sitting up and grabbing both of her arms, just below her shoulders.  She cringed as his face turned red and he began to shout at her.

       "You presume to know everything about my past just because you saw me standing in the rain?" he hissed.

       "Ah!  Squall-"

       "You think that just because you were my instructor once you can chastise me now at your leisure?" the SeeD Commander snapped fiercely.

       "No, Squall, I-"

       "Since when did you suddenly become the undisputed authority of virtue?" he demanded.   "I just wanted, ow-"

       "What qualifies you to carp at my indecision when you've had your shot as an evaluator and you flunked it?" he pressed on viciously.

       "Squall, you're, ow-"

       "I bet that's how you lost your job," the other mocked, "because you spent all your time judging how others handled themselves when you couldn't even handle your own mess!"

       "Squall, you're hurting me," Quistis murmured meekly between sobs.

       Time stopped for him as he realized what he was doing.  He had gripped her skin so hard and had been squeezing without realizing it.  He slowly softened his grip and moved his hands away.  Tears were dripping down and darkening his orange shirt from her chin, and she clasped herself in a defensive reaction, still shivering.  _Oh Eden, I screwed this one up._

       "I might have flaws," Quistis sniffled, "but you didn't have to say all those awful things about my career."

       _You've done it now, dummy.  What were you thinking?_

_       "Look, Quistis," he said apologetically, "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean what I-"_

       "I wasn't fired, you self-righteous prick," she replied icily, wiping her eyes, "I resigned."

       Squall looked blank, but it was only transient confusion.  _Say what?_

       "Why would you do that?" he asked when it all finished registering.

       "You'd never find me attractive if I was your superior," she explained, rubbing her arms.  "I figured you might be more easy around me like that night I asked you out to that secret meeting place.  _Cui bono_, you just hated me more."

       "I didn't hate you," Squall comforted her after an uncomfortable pause, "but I just thought it was okay to be distant since you admitted at the beach by the orphanage that it was just sisterly feelings you had for me."

       He wasn't sure exactly how to proceed, but it just made more sense to try to put his arms around her.  She fought him off half-seriously to be sure, but eventually she just belted him a few times in the stomach, and then succumbed sulkily.

       "One has to save face somehow, especially when others are around," she confessed with true bitterness in her voice.

       "I'm sorry," he apologized again when he couldn't find anything else to say, "I didn't know."

       "That night, on our little 'date'," she continued, "you really made me feel insignificant, like I wasn't even there."

       _That's ironic, Squall humored himself, even though he knew his timing was inappropriate, __since I'm _the one who always wants to disappear._ _

       "Why do you like me then?" he commented instead, giving her a reassuring squeeze.

       She frowned in thought, but snuggled a little closer, still looking off to the side.

       "Because you're so-" she hesitated, unsure how to describe him.

       "Complicated," he finished for her.

       "And nonchalant, I suppose," she added for him.  "You're no different from a wall when I try to talk to you, Squall, and you never take me seriously."      

       "I'm a wall that likes to growl at people," he suggested.

       "Oh, stop it," she fussed, punching him again.

       "What?" he cried in defense while craning his neck slightly to examine the aroma from her hair.  _I'll just take a quick sniff here, and no one will be the wiser._

       She felt his movement and guessed what he was up to, but didn't do anything about it.__

       "I hate myself," she pouted as she marveled, "I can't stay mad at you for two minutes!" 

       "Thanks," Squall replied and then added with a scowl, "Rinoa can hold a grudge for two weeks."

       _Oh shoot! Quistis thought.  _I knew I couldn't put this off forever.  Why can't I ever just enjoy the moment?__

       "Are you ready to talk about Rinoa yet?" she brought up grudgingly, nestling deeper.

       "No," he replied, clasping her a little tighter.  _I don't even want to think about Rinoa._

       "You promised though," she insisted unenthusiastically.  _Why are you doing this, Quistis?_

       "Was I drunk when I did that?" he joked.

       "No," Quistis snapped, exasperated, "but it was probably the line you used to blow me off a few minutes ago."  _Because I'm a decent person._

       "You got one thing right at least," Squall admitted with a grave tone.

       "Squall, you're incorrigible!" she exclaimed.

       "If you say so," he agreed.

       "You're really hard to talk to, Squall," she sighed.  _Don't give me any of that 'If you say so' bull_.

       "I am," he concurred.

       "Yes, you are," she repeated after him even though it wasn't a question.

       "Well you always choose hard topics.  Can't we talk about something else?" he remonstrated.

       "What's so hard to talk about?  Isn't that all guys think about?" Quistis challenged. 

       "Actually," Squall informed her, "I only think about her whenever I come across you."  _Because you always beat it out of me._

       "Gee, thanks," Quistis replied at length, unsure what his remark meant.  _Would that be a good thing or bad thing?_

       "Maybe it's because you're around whenever she's not," Squall suggested.

       Quistis sighed, realizing that Squall had a point.

       "I'm only here to second you," she said, "and Rinoa would have been here for the past two weeks had you not scared her off."

       "What are you talking about?" Squall demanded.

       "Do you know why she really decided to stay at Balamb for two weeks?" Quistis asked.

       "Just as she said, to give me time to settle matters here," Squall replied, waving in the direction of Nova Trabia.

       Quistis shook her head and pointed at Squall's heart.

       "She was giving you time to settle matters _here_," she said softly.

       "What's there to settle?" Squall asked.

       "You could stop trying to hide your feelings for her," Quistis hinted.  _I have a similar problem with you._

_       You have a similar problem with me, Squall thought to himself._

       "She should be headed over here anytime now," Quistis remarked, "and I'm sure these two weeks have been harder on her than they have been on you."

       "I'm not as trouble-free as you think," he responded.

       "So have you been longing for her to the point of insanity?" Quistis probed.

       "Not really," Squall answered smoothly, and holding up his newly lighted cigarette, added, "since these babies can be really friendly too."

       "It's not healthy for you, smoking that is," Quistis commented.

       "There is no physical proof of that," he offered immediately, and in Quistis' opinion, rather defensively.

       "The Malboro chop shop executives have been hiding behind that excuse for years, Squall," Quistis cautioned.  "You don't really think they're telling the truth, do you?"

       "Farmers shall rule the world!" he exclaimed, dismissing her rhetorical question.

       "You mean the Malboro growers?" she questioned.

       "I guarantee it," he continued zealously, "they will!"

       "I think you had better give that last bit up to me, Squall," Quistis suggested.

       He pulled back faster than she thought was possible.

       "I meant I wanted to give it a try," she said weakly.  _I hope he buys it._

       He stared down hard at her, so she did her best to project an innocent smile.  He handed it over hesitantly.

       "Don't waste it," he told her, "and remember to inhale."

       Quistis reached out and took the cigarette.

       "I take it this doesn't make me look too attractive," she commented.

       "You should practice it while your annoying fan-group is parading after you then," Squall suggested.

       "With them at least I know I matter," she pointed out.

       "If you think smoking is ugly, maybe if I do it around Rinoa more, she'll get over it," Squall theorized.

       "I think she's too far gone to do that," Quistis grumpily informed him.

       Squall shrugged as though it was none of his business.

       "If anything," she added while deciding whether or not to take a puff, "she'll start thinking that she's even more unattractive than the M-BTRs and wonder if she's having a bad hair day."

       This conversation was getting too heavy for her, and she decided to give the M-BTR a try.  She ended up in a coughing fit.

       "You've never had a joint before, have you?" he asked as she gasped for air.

       Quistis, unable to stop coughing for even a second's time to reply the negative, shook her head instead.

       "You're turning green," he informed her.

       "Pale, even," he added after another look.

       Squall chuckled for the first time in her presence and then turned his eyes back to the burning horizon.  He quietly waited for her to recuperate.

       "Rinoa has been looking rather pale, don't you think?" Quistis asked suddenly.

       "She has?" Squall returned absent-mindedly.

       "She's too skinny, too," Quistis answered with a nod.  "The last Tornado spell we used to lift the weather balloon for that report nearly blew off the ground.  I think she's losing too much weight."

       "So now you are doing some thinking," Squall applauded.  "Good job."

       "Don't patronize me," Quistis warned, slapping his thumbs up away.  "So tell me what you really think."

       "I think from time to time, but not about Rinoa," he replied at last.

       "Why not?" she demanded.

       "I told you," Squall explained exasperatedly, "I don't think about her until you bring her up, which means she hasn't crossed my mind until just a moment ago."

       "I thought that girls were all guys thought about," Quistis told him with a puzzled look on her face.

       "No," Squall clarified, "we have better things to fathom."

       "Like what?" Quistis asked, looking up at his face.

       "Like A09 motorbikes and the newest editions of 'Weapons Monthly'," he answered.

       "I think you should reset your priorities," Quistis muttered crossly.

       "You mean put 'Weapons Monthly' in front of motorbikes?" he considered.

       She slugged him.

       "So you would rather think about some dumb magazine than a girl?  Me even?" Quistis pressed, raising her voice slightly.

       "Pretty much, but if it makes you feel any better, I know the photographer of 'Weapons Monthly,' and the guy owes me a favor," Squall replied.

       "How is this supposed to make me feel better?" Quistis retorted quizzically.

       "I could probably get you on the cover page if you don't mind wearing nothing but next month's showcase gauntlet," he offered chivalrously.

       Even with his prized agility, Squall could only dodge three of the twenty blows that followed.  _Had to try.  Oh, well._

       "Look," he said, trying to calm her down, "I'm just telling you how _I would go about getting __my attention."_

       "Do you know that's she's been trying to get your attention ever since she met you?" Quistis brought up.

       "I didn't know that," Squall admitted honestly.

       "She thinks that you care about all the little things that everyone else might miss."

       "I hardly notice them sometimes," Squall remarked.

       "You do notice everything, but you don't care about anything," Quistis corrected.

       "What's your point?" he asked.

       "You have to at least tell her that you don't care; otherwise, start caring," she instructed.

       "If you know so much, why can't you just tell her?" he suggested.

       "She won't listen to me, so it's up to you," she said, placing the responsibility in his hands.

       "If she has convinced herself of that, what does it have to do with me?" he asked.

       "She doesn't _want_ to do that, Squall, she just _wants_ you to like her," Quistis explained.

       "Well I don't want her to become a slob," Squall noted.

       Quistis could have slapped him, but again he seemed too adorable to mangle.

       "Squall," she said in a disapproving tone.

       "What makes you so sure she'll go easy on herself once I tell her to stop?" he argued.

       "I'm not so sure myself, actually," Quistis conceded.

       "At any rate, she'll probably think that I took notice because she missed a spot or something, and was just trying to be nice.  Then she'll double her efforts," he went on.

       "Squall," Quistis corrected, "you're never nice to anyone."

       "You know what I meant," he said annoyedly.

       "Yes, I do," she admitted, "and as much as I hate it, you're probably right."

       "So," Squall reasoned, "it would probably be best if I did nothing."

       Quistis frowned.

       "That's what you were aiming for all along, wasn't it?" she questioned.  "You just don't want to lift a finger."

       "Whatever works best, you said it yourself," Squall parried.

       "It would work best for _me_ if you would go and tell her how you feel, Squall," Quistis informed him.

       "Well I think I'll just bend over and comply with whatever pleases you then," Squall replied sarcastically.

       "Would you really?" Quistis gasped, putting her fingers over her mouth.  _I'm holding you to your word._

_       "Actually-"_

       She interrupted Squall's denial by flopping down hard onto him with a huge kiss.

_       Damn, he thought, __I think she took me seriously.  Now I'm obligated._

       _Hehe, she laughed to herself still pinning his mouth in place, _now you're obligated.__

_       "What are you doing?" Squall asked, fighting to remove his mouth._

       Quistis froze and neither exchanged any words.  A look of embarrassment spread across her face as her mind registered what she had done.

       "I'm sorry, so sorry-" she stammered, and broke away from him.  He tried to stay her and ask her what was wrong but she just ran.

       Squall sat up and watched as Quistis' silhouette disappeared back towards the Garden.

       "I had _nothing_ to do with that," he said aloud.

       Being more confused than irritated, he swung his legs around back over the cliff and slouched forward, resting his chin on an upturned palm.  _I just don't get any of them._

_       "Diablos?" he called out, wondering if the GF was still loitering.  __I doubt it, otherwise he would have made a wise crack by now._

_       He was right.  Diablos did not answer his Master, a technical impossibility for a junctioned GF.  __So I'm alone at last._

       He breathed deeply and noted bitterly that all the fuss had cost him most of the sunset.  The last lingering traces of light were fading into oblivion, and had the kiss lasted a minute longer, he would not even have been able to see the pink shades smolder into lavender as it was changing now.

       The wind had picked up slightly since he last made note of it, perhaps three hours ago.  Sheets of waves were now racing across the ocean surface like peels of apple skin sheered by an invisible knife.  Wisps of wind tugged perseveringly at his hair, and he wondered briefly how exhilarating it would feel to accept their invitation and jump.

       _Thank Eden I'm not as dumb as my father, he reflected, feeling the rationality creeping back into his head.  _Short of thirty Tiamats, there is nothing that could possibly make me want to throw myself off of this cliff_._

       Something was wrong.

       Squall paused, unsure exactly what excited a premonition that caused his stomach to tighten.  He looked about the horizon, anticipating…well, he did not know what to anticipate, so he just kept on looking.  The waves were still crashing below, the ocean surface gleaming as it churned under the sun's fading corona.

       _Maybe I'm just hearing things, he told himself, shrugging off the willies._

       This time he heard it for sure.  It was a delicate but clear scream for help towards his right.  He searched in that direction and saw, eight degrees above the protruding shoreline, a person floundering in hysteria.  Closer inspection revealed a shrieking girl trying frantically to stay afloat.  Interestingly enough, he almost mistook her for being bald until he realized that her long hair shared the same color as the sea.

       _No, wait, Squall corrected himself, __she's trying to swim away from something._

       He squinted, trying to focus a little better on the waters around her.  His eyes widened after he spotted the hard-to-miss flaming red fin.

       _What I wouldn't give for not__ taking a closer look, he regretted bitterly.  __Personally I give her less than twenty seconds before it reaches her._

       She screamed again, the shrill echoing inside his hollow self, tugging at his deepest conscience that not even the viciously demanding SeeD training could totally bury.

       _Why do I even bother? he moaned, rolling his eyes and throwing his hands up.  __I must be a goddamned nice person._

       She screamed bloody hell.

       That_ was disconcerting, he noted mentally, now twirling his fingers.  __Let's see, I'm sure I can find some excuse.  Haven't I already done a good deed for the day?  Come on, Squall, think, think!_

       She screamed bloody hell again, realizing that the Fastilochon-F was closing in.

_       Shake it off, you wuss.  Come on, you're supposed to be a hard-ass._

       He couldn't believe that he was losing the internal struggle with himself.

_       Oh, what the hell, he conceded._

       "Leviathan," he commanded, "pull her out of that mess."

       "As you wish, Master," the water dragon GF hissed, phasing back into reality.  It lurched its head back and blared its menacing war cry.

       Squall shut his eyes involuntarily and winced at the pain left ringing in his ears from the thunderous tone.  When he pulled his arms away from his ears, which he didn't realize he had covered, and opened his eyes, he scowled.  _What good was THAT?  Trying to scare her out of the water?_

_       There was a moment of silence._

       "_Now what are you doing?"__ he reproached the serpent-like GF caustically._

       Leviathan looked up from its sun-basking position naively and blinked.

       "My warm-up exercises," it replied in a matter-of-factly way.__

       _Ditto, Squall registered grimly, eyes falling.  __His animation sequence usually takes about a minute, and that's time we don't have._

       "Ifrit," he tried next, motioning towards the girl, "you take a go at it.  Leviathan will probably drown her anyway."

       "I'm not hungry, but thanks for asking, Master," Ifrit declined politely as he reappeared from nothingness.

       A less tempered SeeD Commander would have been foaming at the mouth.  Ifrit balked and apologetically offered up, "Do you honestly want me to pluck her out of the ocean?  You _know_ what happens when I come in contact with human flesh, don't you?"

       _A barbecue, Squall capitulated, but jeered anyway, "Come on you hydrophobic goat!  I thought a bath once a century would lighten up your sulfurous __BO."_

       _This is definitely not good; gotta think up something quick.  Holy Shiva, do I need a smoke!_

_       "There is always time for one of these," he murmured as he drew out another Malboro.  As an added bonus, Ifrit lit it before he brought it to his mouth. _

       The girl was now beyond hysterical with the monster nearly on top of her.

       "Ifrit," he commanded, "I need some of your Mad Rage."

       Ifrit clapped his paws together in preparation for working his magic.

_       Thirty Tiamats? Squall scolded himself bitterly. _Ha!  I'm a smart guy, all right!__

       Disdainfully he took one exorbitant puff on his cigarette and then tossed it over the edge.  It was fascinating in a scary way, watching it fall and realizing that he would have to follow it.  Taking a deep breath and clearing his head until he could feel his blood heating up unnaturally and his fears diminishing, he surged forward and took a running leap off the lonely precipice.

       _I bet Laguna shouted something really dumb when he did this. _

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	15. Setting 12: 2039 DAY 15, Just beyond Win...

Setting 12: 2039 DAY 15, Just beyond Winhill Cemetery 

_"Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!  
Against stupidity the very gods  
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,  
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,  
Wise foundress of the system of the world,  
Guide of the stars, who are thou then, if thou,  
Bound to the tail of folly's uncurb'd steed,  
Must, vainly shrieking, with the drunken crowd,  
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss."_

-von Schiller, Johann Christian Friedrich

_The Maid of Orleans_

       _"G_eronimo!" Laguna hooted in his midair dive, bringing his arms into a streamline position with his body.  Kiros and Ward had told him time and time again that what he considered intrepidity was really just his lack of a common evolutionary knob in the back of the head from which rationale and caution emanated.

       _But what do they know?  It's not every day that you get the chance to make a running dive into a…rocky crevice…_

       It hit Laguna just then that he wasn't diving headfirst into a pool of water as he had originally thought.  He managed to grab the cat that had been trapped on a lower ledge but continued to fall.

       Kiros read Ward's eyes knowingly even before the President of Esthar remembered to holler for help.  It was never too hard to tell when a collision was going to occur around Laguna; if there wasn't any projectile into whose trajectory he could step, he'd make himself the moving object and go caroming off the walls or over some cliff.  

_       The first thousand times it was funny.  After that, well…_

       Kiros' thought left off as the much expected but less than desirable scream sounded at last.

       Judging from its pitch, which Ward recalled and saw that it was indeed related to the number of echoes that reverberated up through and out of the fissure, the large man quickly calculated how far down Laguna had had to have fallen up till that minute.  He raised his eyebrows and whistled, visibly impressed.  _Had it not been for my dissertation on wave mechanics and resonance during my pursuit of double doctorates in applied physics and mechanical engineering, I would have never been able to figure that one out._

       Both men realized how dangerous a drop Laguna was enduring.  They also dimly noted how annoying his continuous scream had become.  _Remember to inhale sometime, they thought at the same time._

       Right then neither Kiros nor Ward could hold back their laughter any longer, and they doubled over, grabbing their stomachs.  On the ground they rolled and hooted until their chests hurt and they began to choke.  They had both opted to personally leave Esthar to check up on Laguna and inquire about Ellone's absence because of the obvious entertainment that Laguna's company would provide.  He had not disappointed them.

       Suddenly Kiros froze, exclaiming, "Holy Shiva!  That poor cat!"

       He dismissed the thought and went back to hooting and chuckling in harmony with Ward before he froze again and exclaimed, "Great Eden!  How long has it been?"

       Ward got to his feet as well and pointed at his watch.  _Don't even try._

       Kiros started biting his fingernails nervously.  "Come on, Ward," he pleaded, "this is serious."

       Ward nodded.  _You're damn right.  But too bad._

       Kiros was sweating uncontrollably.  "Maybe we misheard.  He _has to have hit the bottom already!"_

       _Like Diablos he has! Ward shot back with his indignant eyes._

       "This can't be happening!" Kiros cried, covering his face with his hands and breaking down into a sobbing fit.

       Ward was chuckling wildly.  He raised his eyebrows when they finally heard the _thud _of Laguna's landing followed by some weak curses and weeping sounds. 

       Kiros nervously checked his watch.  Then he proceeded to swear.

       "I don't believe it, I'm so dead!" he mourned, raising his palms to the sky.

       Ward grinned and tapped the face of Kiros' watch.  Then he held his hand out, expecting his payment.

       Kiros swore again, this time invoking Diablos, and reached in his pocket.  He stopped himself.  _Damn, almost cut open my thigh again!  I always forget to take these knife-guards off_.

       It took another five minutes before Kiros was clumsily able to shell out eight thousand Gil, laying each bit on Ward's sweaty palm.  All the while, they either couldn't hear Laguna's weak but laborious groaning escaping from the pit or they chose to ignore it.  When Kiros had finished, however, Ward didn't withdraw his hand.  Rather he tilted his head indignantly and stuck his hand out farther.

       "That's all I have!" Kiros cried meekly, raising his hands up to shield his face.

       Ward scowled.  _You know you're not even half way, right?_

       "I'll get you another thousand once we get back Esthar," Kiros assured him hurriedly.

       Ward didn't budge.

       "Oh, come on," the other pleaded, "how was I to know that that bum was going fall for more than eighty seconds?"

       Ward thought it over, and slowly his countenance softened.  All it took then was a shrug to remove any tension left in the air.  Kiros' despair, however, as well as Laguna's crying, remained vibrant.

       "To Diablos with him!" Kiros growled, kicking a rock that he felt was laughing at him because he underbid Laguna's fall by eighteen seconds, and he was left to pay the difference in thousands.  _Stupid 98, what kind of retarded number is that?_

       Disgustedly Kiros waved his partner off and started heading in the direction of the town.  "I'm going to look around for some Gil.  If I get lucky, I'll stumble upon an entire hoard of it that doesn't belong to anyone."

       Before Kiros trudged out of range, Ward hit him in the head with the blunter end of his anchor.  He seemed to say, "_What do you think this is, some kind of game?"_

       Kiros turned for a second to glare at his companion, and then returned to what he was doing.  "That was the down-payment on my son's college entry fee!"

       Ward snorted.  _We both know you don't have a son._

       Kiros either read his mind or knew his colleague well enough to guess his response without even trying to match a semantico-referential value to Ward's sneer.

       "How would I know that?" Kiros shouted, flinging his arms into the air and waving them wildly over his head.  "Huh?  Tell me, how do I know for sure?  I could have a son, you could have a son, Laguna could have another son for all Eden knows!  There are so many of them popping up all of the sudden."

       Ward blinked, not having anticipated this outburst.  _Whoa!  Calm down_.

       "So if you don't mind," Kiros continued, regaining his stoical composure, "I have a fortune to stumble on."

       Ward stayed his hand so he couldn't do that.

       "What?" Kiros posed exasperatedly.

       Ward pointed at the chasm.  He pointed again and again.__

       "You want me to check up on _that_ moron?" Kiros protested in disbelief.

       Ward grimaced but nodded.  _I suppose that would be the decent thing to do._

       "But he's not screaming any _more_," Kiros pointed out.

       Before either of them could evaluate if Laguna's sudden silence purported less danger or even more danger, Laguna continued his howling.

       "See?" Kiros argued.  "At least he's still alive.  Do we _have to check on him?"_

       _That's what we came all the way from Esthar to this backwater sinkhole for! Ward thought furiously.  _Ask him if Ellone stayed with him.__

       "But the clown just cost me 18000 Gil!" Kiros whined, hopping up and down in frustration.

       _It's not like you don't get things for free at the Esthar shops anyway, Ward pointed out dryly._

       "You get stuff for free?" an awed Kiros murmured.

       _Sometimes was the answer._

       "Which shops do you go to?" Kiros demanded.

       _Johnny's and Karen's, Ward gloated._

       "_Those skinflints?" shouted Kiros triumphantly.  "Ha!  Now I _know_ you're lying."_

       _I kid you not, little man, Ward reaffirmed with renewed fervor._

       "What about Cheryl's then?" Kiros asked.

       Ward was beaming so much that it bothered his counterpart.  That may have been the intent all along.

       "Impossible!" Kiros fumed.  "She never gives _me anything!"_

       _Probably because you're not fat or blonde, Ward explained._

       "Well, that settles it," Kiros replied gingerly, "I need to find enough change on the ground to dye my hair blonde so I can get things for free at Cheryl's and _not have to look around on the ground for a check for 18000 Gil!"  He practically hollered the last part._

       _You can't just forsake the cat, Ward argued, staring right back.  __You can leave Laguna, but the cat has to come with us._

       No words were needed to decipher that look that Ward now wore.  Kiros knew there was no argument when Ward cast _that_ expression, so he resignedly agreed, but purposely over-dramatized his slouching shoulders as he slinked over to the opening in the ground.  He rolled his eyes and exhaled in disgust as Laguna's pathetic sobs grew increasingly audible with every step he took in that direction.  By the time he and Ward reached the perilous edge, the whimpering shook like thunder, a surprising amplifying effect that Ward ascribed to the resonant chasm walls.

       Kiros leaned forward, exuding disdain throughout the maneuver, and called down nonchalantly, "What's up?"  _Not him, obviously._

       Ward thought just as much, and considered it just as droll.

       Laguna was still screaming bloody death.

       "Is everything okay?" Kiros pressed.

       "I think I broke my leg," Laguna crowed between wails.

       "Not you," Kiros reproached caustically, "I meant the cat.  Is he okay?"

       Laguna paused, slightly confused.  "Yeah, he's fine.  But my leg-"

       "Oh, shut up, you big baby," Kiros shouted, "Take it like a man.  Besides, it builds character."

       "It does?" Laguna asked.

       _It does? Ward wondered, taking a quick look at Kiros, who was too busy humoring himself to notice.  _Why haven't I ever noticed how impressive Laguna's character is_?_

       "So which leg did you break?" Kiros questioned.

       "Do they make distinctions?" Laguna replied, earnestly taken by surprise.

       "Yes," the condescending Kiros assured him, "yes, Laguna, they do."

       "I'm not sure," was the weak-voiced answer.  "I'm inverted right now."

       "And why would you be inverted?" Kiros posed.

       "I had to stretch out so that I'd catch myself from falling with something protruding from the walls.  It ended up catching my foot, so I'm dangling," Laguna explained.

       "How's it hanging?" Kiros jeered while crossing his arms.

       "I'm serious!"  Laguna shouted tearfully, "I need you to get down here!"

       He sounded so insistent that Ward patted Kiros on the shoulder and motioned for him to go.

       _It'll build character, he pointed out, pushing an extremely recalcitrant Kiros towards the edge._

       "Ha, ha, very funny," Kiros responded and backed away quickly.  "Keep away from me."

       "Will you two quit kidding around and help me up?" Laguna cried from below.

       "But there are two of us up here and we would have to traverse twice the distance that you descended," Kiros reasoned to the desperate invalid, "while you're the only one down there and all you have to do is climb up one trip length.  Wouldn't it make sense for _you to get off your ass and come up?"_

       _Yeah, Ward concurred, adding, __quit clowning around and get up already._

       "Stop being ridiculous and help me," Laguna ordered.  "You have no idea how much this hurts."

       "Oh, _believe me_," Kiros urged, "I can relate."

       _Me too, Ward added mentally._

       "How long did we stay in the hospital to recover from that fall?" Kiros asked Ward loud enough so Laguna could hear.

       _Hmm, let me think…a few months? Ward thought back equally as loud so Laguna could hear._

       "And _who_ was it who _inspired us jump off the cliff?" Kiros continued, raising his voice.  Just to rub it in farther, "__What, pray, was the name of this genius?"_

       _Laguna, Ward shot back with his eyes._

       "_Who was this __man," Kiros continued sarcastically, "who made that __ever wise decision without, mark this, __without ever having studied general physics?"_

       _Laguna, Ward repeated._

       "Louder please, I don't think he quite caught that," Kiros advised.

       _Laguna! Ward blasted._

       "And who, kind sir," Kiros picked up again, "after being reacquainted with me _for the first time after all those months and traveling so far to see him, made me kill five or six monsters for him before giving me, poor me, poor and _exhausted_ me, anything to eat or drink, just to impress some woman?"_

       _Laguna, Ward answered acidly and pointed at the perpetrator with an accusing finger._

       "Laguna," Kiros summed up gravely, "you are despicable.  How low can you go?"

       _He's in pretty deep, I'd say, Ward tried to say._

       "But she was hot!" Laguna protested.

       Kiros was about to refute that excuse when he saw Ward's reaction.

       _He's right, Ward had conceded,__ she was hot._

       Kiros considered it, and shrugged disinterestedly.

       "Fine," he called down, "we'll give you that much, but if you want my help, it's going to cost you."

       Ward raised an eyebrow, but only because he liked where Kiros was taking this.

       Laguna had managed to stop crying, but he was still battling with his sniffles when he heard Kiros' new proposition.  The end result was a incomprehensible snort.

       "Come again?" Kiros demanded, feeling his innards begin to boil.

       "How much?" Laguna elucidated in a hurry.

       _Now we're getting somewhere, Kiros thought to himself delightfully, shifting his weight to his other leg for the sake of comfort, and rubbing his hands together interestedly._

       "18000 Gil," he pronounced flatly.

       They heard another weak yelp from Laguna and then another _thud.  Obviously he had heard the price correctly and slipped.  Presumably he landed on a ledge somewhere further down in the gorge._

       _Like that__ wasn't outrageous or anything, Ward remarked to Kiros, referring to the price._

       "Hey, big guy," Kiros returned, "keep your remarks to yourself."

       _Fine, I will, Ward rejoined, __you're not allowed to read to my thoughts anymore._

       There were some strange noises

       "The cat is beating me up!  Argh!"  they heard Laguna clamor.

       "Don't hurt it," Kiros cautioned him.

       "I'm _not_!!!" Laguna shouted back.

       Ward broke out with, _Stop playing around down there_.

       "Help, help, help," Laguna yelped between screams and heavy pants.

       "Sounds like the cat's tearing him up," Kiros commented.

       _Sure seems like it, his friend concurred thoughtfully._

       "It's but a kitten," Kiros reassured Laguna, "don't be rough."

       Laguna was too busy screaming to catch the empty words.

       "Five to one says the kitten beats him," Kiros whispered to his compatriot.

       _That's no contest, Ward scoffed._

       "How about ten to one odds, _and_ consider that it is a de-clawed kitten Laguna is facing," Kiros offered after more consideration.

       _You're on, Ward complied, __for 18000 Gil on the cat._

       "But even if I win I'll still owe you a fortune," Kiros whined.  "Make it 180,000 Gil."

       _Fine, whatever, Ward consented, confident that Kiros was the worst gambler in the world and Laguna was the least predictable person on whom to place a bet._

       The new wager had distracted them for so long that they didn't notice that the scuffling sounds had quieted.  Kiros caught it first.

       "You didn't drop the cat, did you?" he inquired, his face paling.

       "No, but I have my fingers around its scrawny little neck," Laguna reported.

       _Don't do anything rash, Laguna, Ward admonished._

       "Help me up, or the cat dies!" threatened Laguna.

       _Stars of Gilgamesh!  Laguna Loire! Ward exclaimed.  _Why I never!_ _

       "Let's talk about this," Kiros entreated fearfully.

       "I mean it!" Laguna repeated more loudly.__

_       "You better not hurt him, Laguna," Kiros warned._

       "I will if you don't help me up," Laguna countered.

       "T-This is outrageous!"  Kiros stammered.  "Unacceptable.  What do you think you're doing?

       _I never imagined the President as a hostage-taker, Ward reflected.  __Whoa!  This blows my mind.  I have to sit down._

       "I'll do it!" Laguna shouted back, "I'm crazy, you know I will."

       Kiros looked nervously at Ward and asked, "What now?"

       _We have no choice.  Help him up, the other answered._

       "Does this mean I don't get the money from him?" Kiros grumbled.

       _Live with it, Ward returned._

       "What do you want us to do?" Kiros called down to Laguna.

       "Well, it looks like now I'm going to need a rope," Laguna responded after surveying his surroundings.

       "Why didn't you ask before?" Kiros chastised severely.

       "The sides were rough enough and had footholds before," Laguna clarified, "but I've fallen somewhere really smooth and impossible to scale."

       "Well I don't have any rope, and from the way you're describing it, I can't go down there and help you up without getting stranded myself," Kiros pointed out.

       "Looks like you can't," Laguna whispered, on the verge of crying.

       "Well," Kiros said, brushing his hands off, "it looks like you're going to be down there for awhile.  Do you need your backpack?"

       Laguna cried in delight.  _I'd forgotten about that!_

_       Kiros was curious why Laguna was celebrating by himself in the pit._

       "Is everything okay?" he inquired.

       "Yeah, I always carry rope in my backpack so I can elevate myself during my Desperado limit break," Laguna happily replied.  "Throw it down here."

       Kiros nodded and replied, "Gotcha.  Hang on a second, I won't be long."

       He went to grab Laguna's backpack and threw it into the fissure.

       Laguna felt something brush past his head and race farther down into the gorge.

       "What was that?" he demanded.

       "You said to throw your backpack down to you," Kiros answered, invariably puzzled by Laguna's question.

       "I meant the _rope_," Laguna said evenly.  _I'm so dead._

_       Kiros and Ward exchanged looks.  _The poor cat is lost_, they thought simultaneously._

       "We can't help you, bro," Kiros yelled tentatively, "you'll have to figure something out."

       "Like Doomtrain I do!" Laguna growled in response.  Gritting his teeth, he added, "If you don't think up something quick, I'm dumping the cat."

       _You wouldn't! Ward contended._

       "I would," Laguna affirmed.

       Ward peered apprehensively at Kiros.  _Do something, his eyes seemed to say._

       Kiros went over to wear the backpack had been lying and saw Laguna's machine gun.  He picked it up, put in a fresh magazine, and aimed it into the crevice.

       "If you do, I'll shoot you," he threatened.

       "This is inexcusable," Laguna roared.  "I'll haul your ass into court for conspiracy and attempted assassination."

       "Just don't drop the kitten," Kiros defended himself.

       "Put my gun down before you hurt someone," Laguna ordered.

       "Only if you hold on to the cat," Kiros offered.

       "Fine," Laguna agreed, "just drop the gun."

       A minute later something hard and metal-like struck his head and ricocheted into oblivion.

       "What the name of Pandemona was _that_?" he asked, his head pulsating with pain.  _That's going to leave a mark._

       "You said to drop the gun," Kiros answered.

       "To drop it on _the ground_," Laguna exploded.  "What is wrong with you?"

       "Maybe you should be more explicit in your directions," Kiros sneered in return.

       "I will not tolerate insubordination, mark you," Laguna warned.

       "I did exactly as I was told," Kiros griped.

       _He did, Ward agreed._

       "I am _not _going to get into another debate with you about semantics and non-referential indexes," Laguna said firmly.

       Suddenly they heard Laguna celebrating again.

       Kiros peeked over the edge and asked, "I just tried to shoot you!  In what are you reveling?"  

       "What luck!" Laguna excitedly exclaimed.  "If the gun wasn't in the backpack, then neither was the rope.  I remember that I took out the rope earlier.  It's probably sitting around where you found the backpack!"

       "Okay," Kiros replied, "I'll be right back."

       Just to be perfectly clear, Kiros added, "Don't go anywhere."  _Not that he can anyway._

       A second later Laguna felt something whiz by his head again.

       "What was that?" he shouted.

       "The rope," Kiros answered, even more puzzled.  "Is that what you wanted?"

       "I wanted you to _tie_ it to something!" Laguna yelled, foaming at the mouth.

       "Why didn't you say so?" Kiros parried, becoming slightly annoyed.

       "Good thing I have another rope," Laguna called up again.  "It should be sitting behind where you found that first rope."

       "Okay, sit tight," Kiros replied and went to check.

       _Why is this so difficult? Laguna wondered, feeling sick on the inside because of all the stupidity._

       Just then, something whistling through the air caught his attention, and looking up, hit him right in the forehead.  It then wrapped itself around his neck.  It felt like a rope.

       "What the Ifrit is the meaning of this?" Laguna roared.  "I thought I told you to tie it to something!"

       Kiros peered over the edge again, visibly perturbed.

       "I _did_ tie it to something," he explained.  "The two ends are bound together, you see?"

       Both he and Ward had to cover their ears in order to deafen the volumes of expletives they would have otherwise caught.

       "Any more of this and I quit!" Kiros mumbled.  "I can't take any more invective from that impossible man."

       "Kiros," Laguna hissed slowly, "go and fetch the third rope and this time, tie it to a tree before you throw it down to me."

       Kiros did as he was told, but stuck his tongue out at his superior, knowing he was well out of visibility.  Once he had completed the deed, he crossed his arms and waited for his kudos.

       Nothing happened, so he tried crossing his arms again and settling back, certain that his kudos would come.

       Laguna did not display any of the desired gratitude. 

       "I can't take it anymore," Kiros said simply, throwing up his arms.  "I need a break before I mutiny."

       _I'm getting tired standing here too, Ward remarked, swatting some Bite Bugs away from his face.  _Can't we go somewhere?__

_       Kiros had no reason not to._

       "Hey, Laguna," he called down, "just wanted you to know, if you need us, we'll be back at the tavern."

       "What?" Laguna hissed with a shaky voice.

       "Call us when you get close to the surface," Kiros suggested.  They had walked nearly out of hearing range.

       "But you can't just leave me," Laguna insisted.  "I have a broken leg, remember?"

       He got no response.

       "Hello?" he tried.

       Nothing.

       "Kiros?"

       Still nothing.

       "Ward?"

       He had no idea that his two aides were already half way to bar.

       "I wonder how long Laguna will keep shouting for us," Kiros said.

       _You'd be surprised, Ward noted._

       "Yeah, I know," Kiros acquiesced.

       Somewhere far away, Laguna hollered plaintively, "Kiros?"

       As Kiros and Ward passed the chocobo crossing, they saw a curious gentleman seated with his back against the crossing sign and scribbling intently in his notebook.  He was dressed in an overcoat, but casually in all other respects from neck down.  Neck up he wore a sharp visor and a blue cap that he rotated 180 degrees after every few lines he wrote.  His dusty satchel laid open beside him.

       "What do you make of this?" Kiros asked Ward as they came upon him.

       _Beats me, the other answered._

       "Doesn't look like a native," Kiros deduced, "since no one in Winhill needs an overcoat."

       _I concur, Ward concurred._

       Somewhere far away, Laguna sorrowfully called, "Ward?"

       Back by the chocobo crossing, again referring to the stranger, Kiros said, "He is probably from out of town."

       _How astute you are, Ward remarked._

       Kiros turned on his heel and snapped, "That's enough out of you."

       Ward answered by sticking his tongue out at his partner and raising his anchor ominously.

       "Yeah," Kiros snarled, "like _that_ wasn't childish."

       Ward turned his attention back to the stranger and motioned for Kiros to look.  The lad was still madly scribbling down notes under the crossing sign, totally oblivious that he was blocking some chicobos from reaching the other side.

       Ward whistled and raised his eyebrows.  _What do you think?_

       "I think we should tell him to move before the mother chocobo shows up," Kiros suggested.

       Ward saw some movement in the brush next to the youth and pointed again.__

       _It may be too late, he realized._

       Kiros was about to alert him when he felt Ward's tension ease about five notches.

       "What now?" he asked.

       _It's not a mother chocobo behind the bush, Ward answered.  __In fact, there isn't a bush there._

       Kiros was skeptical and squinted for better discernment.  _Hmm, maybe Ward is right_.

       _Of course I'm right, Ward affirmed._

       It was a white teddy-bear-like creature covered in raggedy tawny cloth.  On its back was strapped a camouflage-colored sack whose loose-hanging flap betrayed the identity of the contents within – scrolls of some sort.

       For no reason at all the air suddenly began to pulse with a light melody; the term most often used to describe this quaint phenomenon was "Mog's Theme."

       "Hey," Kiros marveled, mouth gaping at the site of the cat-mouse creature, "I didn't know the mogli were back in town."

       _You must be scared now, Ward observed._

       "M-Me?" Kiros stammered.  "No way; why should I be s-scared?"

       _Because you're a ninny, Ward thought bluntly._

       "I am _not _a ninny," Kiros disputed with a glare.

       _Oh, so writing up, proposing, and forcing ratification of the Esthar edict of nativity, three Moogle suspicion acts, and four anti-moogle statutes in the Assembly of Nobles RIGHT AFTER you lost your underground prize fight to Mog had absolutely NOTHING to do with your feelings after the fight?  Ward sneered in contempt._

_       "They're mogli!" Kiros explained.  "They provide no service to the public and the only time they used to ever come out of their caves was voting day, standing in massive lines outside their local registrars' offices."  _And if it hadn't been for Laguna's patronship, those miserable little Moobas would have been excluded as well.__

       _Look at that one, Ward refuted.  _Today isn't voting day, and he's carrying the mail for Eden's sake.  Is postage delivery no longer considered a civil function?__

       "They aren't human," Kiros added, "so they shouldn't be voting anyway!"

       _And thanks to you, now they aren't, Ward shot back._

       "I am _not _a ninny," the other repeated flatly but making no further attempt to defend his side of the argument.

       _Hey, you know what? Ward brought up with a genuine look of concern painted over his brow.  _I don't care.__

       "Besides," Kiros felt compelled to add in response and did, "I was taking a dive

       _You?  A presidential aide?  Taking a dive? Ward highlighted skeptically._ That's like Laguna spelling his name right.__

       "All very good questions," Kiros commented, "but yes."

       _So you think I'm going to believe that you consciously performed an indisputably realistic FIRST ROUND knock out to fake the crowd out of its money? Ward derided.  _There was no way you could drag the fight on longer and make it look like you actually knew what you were doing?__

       "That is because I'm good at what I do," Kiros beamed.

       _Falling? Ward clarified._

       "Faking," Kiros corrected dryly with a miffed stare.

       _And his claiming the Mognet Circuit title and the trophy didn't phase you at all? Ward mused._

       "It was just a Mog's Amulet," Kiros replied.  "Who gives an Ifrit about the MiniMog ability?"

       A second later he began to bawl and was barely able to suppress a flood of tears.  _I wanted it so much.  Now I'll never be able to shrink Maduin and claim the Mognet Special Circuit title!_

       His mourning was interrupted by Ward's tapping his shoulder.

_       I think you misunderstood me when I said I didn't care, Ward reiterated just for Kiros.  _I really don't give an Armadodo's rear end about-__

       "But I'm not a not a ninny!" Kiros insisted in a weak whine as he dropped to his knees and shook Ward's arm in desperation.  "You have to believe me!"

       _Good gods, man!  Ward swore at the same time he was overwhelmed by a sense of disgust.  __Get a grip!  Wait, I didn't  mean it literally!_

       Ward tried very hard to shake Kiros off as the latter began to babble incoherently in a state of panic.  This action only prompted Kiros to clutch on even more firmly, much to the embarrassment of his partner.  By the time Ward succeeded in reclaiming his hand from Kiros, it was quite conspicuous how the latter was trembling.

       Back at the ravine, Laguna piteously cried for someone to help him.

       _Your knees look pretty weak, Ward reflected, reaching out to steady his friend.  _Do you need to sit down?__

_       Blast Pandemona!  Kiros worried.  _Should I run?__

       _Wouldn't worry about it, Ward succored._

_       "Who says I'm worried?" Kiros replied too quickly for the statement to be credulous._

       Ward rolled his eyes and then proceeded, _This one looks like a courier, not a fighter_.

       He looked up at his elated colleague and caught him just as he was breathing a sigh of relief.  Having been caught, Kiros self-consciously made a poor attempt of making the sigh look like a yawn.

       The grave Ward slowly lifted his right hand to his forehead and made a his index finger and thumb orthogonal to one anther in a distinctive "L" shape.  _Loser_.

       Kiros ruffled his nose and shifted his gaze from Ward to the moogle postman, wearing a roughly leopard-colored costume.  The speckle-caped moogle was still struggling with something beside the young stranger.  He had not looked up, much to Ward's relief.  Two grown men, presidential aides at that, clinging to each other in broad daylight was not intelligence that he wanted the Esthar media to get its hands on.__

_       They took a few tentative steps in the moogle's direction to get a better look._

       The moogle seemed to be repeatedly kicking the sole of the man's shoe as he sat there writing.

       "Doing a civil service?" Kiros jeered Ward.  "Yeah, I'll believe _that_."

_       Ward smacked him.  _Shut up and go see if he needs our help.__

_       In the middle of his thought Ward reached out and caught the collar of an anxious Kiros whose intent had been to casually slink away without his companion noticing.  Ward threw Kiros back in front of him and pushed him forward a few steps.  __Ninny._

       "For the last time," Kiros hissed at Ward though he keep his eyes in front of him, "I'm _not _a ninny."

       The air currents in the area had been pretty inert up to this point, but as they inched forwards with Ward winning the pushing and shoving match against a struggling Kiros, the breeze raised itself once again, resuscitating the landscape and running through the soft Winhill grass by rows.  It raced past the two contesting Estharians and apparently picked up some of their scent because as it streamed over the moogle and his human companion, the creature immediately stopped what he was doing and vigilantly turned around.  The startled moogle furrowed his big, round nose, puffed up both cheeks, and squinted more ominously than mogli are accustomed to squint.

       While Ward had always wondered how mogli could possibly see anything with their narrow eye slits closed, he was not too curious to carelessly offend this particular one by staring back at him.  He desisted forcing Kiros forward for two reasons: Firstly, he read from the moogle's crystal white countenance varying shades of suspicion and annoyance; secondly, he was sensing great inner strength stored within the small body.  But from what he knew of Ultimecia, Edea Kramer's delicate frame and welcoming disposition were false measures of innocuousness.

       Kiros similarly tensed up and whispered so only Ward could hear him, "Postal carrier my ass, look at those bulging moogle muscles popping out from under his cape!"

       Ward frowned and nudged Kiros to get his attention.  _That's not what worries me the most_.

       "What worries you more?" Kiros whispered back fearfully, his hands starting to feel chilly.

       Ward didn't want to risk drawing any more attention to himself by pointing so he just indicated as clandestinely as possible for Kiros to scrutinize the moogle's fawn-skin cap.  Kiros tried to focus in on it, but saw nothing  more than the cap.

       _He's trying to hide his antenna, but you can see it popping out from behind the cap, Ward directed._

_       "What about it?" Kiros hissed back after he had located the orange-red bulb that was no doubt connected to the animal's forehead by a thin black stalk.  Kiros concurrently wiped a row of lingering sweat globules from his dark forehead._

       _Only the more passionate mogli have antennae, and this one comes with muscles.  Not a propitious combination for us, Ward grimly made known._

       "But Mog didn't have an antenna," Kiros refuted, turning his head slightly to face his comrade who had been using him as a shield during the entire encounter without his knowledge.

       _Who said that aloof fur-ball was passionate when he gave you the infamous shiner that didn't heal for-_

_       "Okay," Kiros interrupted, turning on his heels, "I get the picture.  Do we have to relive that?"_

       Ward shrugged.  _Boy is this moogle theme music getting to me!_

       "What about Maduin?" Kiros asked, shrugging off all the lackadaisical notes, switching desultorily among octaves, that were ringing in his ears.

       _He has a horn, the next level up, Ward answered and shifted his body so that Kiros was again directly between him and the moogle._

       Kiros scowled, becoming dimly aware that he was being used as a shield in case the moogle turned hostile.  _Hey, wait a second..._

_       Ward gave an alarmed look and redirected Kiros' attention to the furry moogle._

       Ward had also broken into a sweat and was having difficulties swallowing.  _It's fortunate that Laguna isn't here; I think the moogle might take offense to a total stranger rubbing its furry tummy._

       "Help me!"  Laguna wailed from the other side of the hill, but his voice did not carry far enough to interrupt the stand off.

       Throughout their nervous conversation, the moogle grew increasingly apprehensive and did not take either of his squinty eyes off them.  Now, much to their consternation, it lifted its left paw up to its face and rubbed its pink nose until it turned deep crimson, and then took a step back.  

       _That's a cautionary sign, Ward translated for Kiros._

       Kiros suddenly realized how hard he was breathing, but try as he did, he could not calm himself down.

       The moogle's new position at the base of the young man's shoe was most opportune for providing a seat, and so it took a short hop, beating its small cherry wings sporadically, and plopped down on the man's shin.  It then crossed its paws, leaned over, set its elbows on the tip of his companion's shoe, and rested its chin on his fluffy wrists.  Never once, though, did he avert his eye slits from his targets.  The man still had not noticed anything.

       From the corner of its eye slits, the moogle saw the two intruders breathe more easily in response to his movement, apparently underestimating how deadly he sitting down even when seated.  If mogli in general had lips, this one would have curled its upper lip to one side and jutted its lower lip outwards in a menacing snarl.  The scariest expression the creature could muster was two nastily slanted eyebrows and a darkening of its snow white aspect.

       "He doesn't seem so dangerous now," Kiros commented, trying his best to laugh off the suffocating tension.

       _I wouldn't be so sure, Ward interjected, _seeing as how the bulb on its antenna is changing from orange to a dark shade of red.  We'd best not provoke it_._

       The moogle scratched its nose again and then began to tap the young man's shoe, trying extremely hard to get his attention.  Ward wondered briefly how long the two must have traveled together for the youth to accrue the tolerance necessary to ignore the moogle's meddling for so long.  In that brief span of time the moogle had tried to bit the toe of the shoe but its mouth was too small and the material too hard.  Its only resort was to jump off its seat, afforded by the pant leg, with the usual half-flutter of wings and resume kicking the sole of the man's shoe.

       Kiros and Ward watched ambivalently as it grew tired and panted heavily with sagging shoulders.

       "We could just help him out and toss a rock in the boy's direction," Kiros suggested to Ward.  "That might get him to look up."

       _It's worth a shot, Ward guessed._

       After more thought Ward considered, _Or we could just call out to him._

       Kiros did a quick scan of the area and located the choicest rock within reaching distance, and so, after stooping and picking it up, he aimed to miss and tossed it accordingly.

       The moogle, who decided that gnawing through the man's pant leg was the best way to get his attention, stopped what it was doing.  Its antenna bulb grew bright red, sensing danger.  The animal propelled itself off the man's leg and soared in the air.  In mid-flight it performed a quick rotation and the resulting roundhouse kick connected squarely with the rock, sending it back along the same trajectory with more force than was originally imparted.

       Kiros swore and screamed in pain as the rock hit him in the forehead.  Clutching his face, he keeled over just as the young man looked up.

       "What's going on?" he asked, standing up and dropping his notebook.  His moogle pointed at Kiros and Ward with his chubby paws, quickly mimicked how Kiros cast the stone, and then fell back into a fighting stance with fuzzy fists raised.

       Kiros was still on the ground moaning so Ward stepped forward and tried to communicate, _We were just seeing if you needed help._

       "Well, say something," the stranger said, not familiar with Ward's technique.

       "Here," Kiros managed to pronounce through groans as he rose laboriously to his feet, "allow me."

       Dusting himself off and checking to see if he was bleeding, Kiros eventually introduced himself and Ward, and then inquired the name and business of the stranger.

       The other tipped his hat and reciprocated, "I call myself Jeremy."

       Ward noted the strands of blonde hair that forced their way out from under the cap before their new acquaintance readjusted his cap

       "May I call you 'Jer'?" Kiros entreated, noticing the flashy hair as well.

       "No, you may not," Jeremy stated plainly.

       "What is your business here?" Kiros then asked, not having gotten the answer initially.

       "Why?" Jeremy retorted.  "Are you two gentlemen constables?"

       "We have authority here," Kiros replied coolly.  "Let me see your passport and some identification, boy."

       "Give me a sec then," the other agreed, and went over to his satchel to find the appropriate cards. 

       "Kupo ku-ku-kupo kupo-po kupo ku-ku-po kupo-po ku-kupo kupo kupo kupo!" the moogle yelped, brushed his nose twice, and lifted his fists pugilistically

       "Is this vicious character bothering you?" Kiros asked.

       "Stiltzkin?" the youth, still rummaging inside his bag, replied with an offhand glance in the moogle's direction.  "Of course not.  Why would you think that?"

       His voice revealed his surprise so Ward explained, _The creature was kicking your shoe._

       Jeremy, head buried inside his satchel, did not see what Ward was trying to say.

       Seeing this, Kiros translated for Ward, "That _thing_ was kicking your shoe."

       "Was he?" Jeremy returned in an amused tone that bordered on curiosity.

       _Honest to Eden, Ward answered._

       "Oh, yeah," Jeremy replied suddenly, seeming to have recalled something, "he does that."

       "Do you want us to get rid of it?" Kiros inquired.

       "No," Jeremy answered, floundering amidst a flood of paper, "Stiltzkin is fine right here."

       "He is your pet?" Kiros followed the response without another question.

       The moogle evidently did not like what Kiros said because his expression hardened.  Kiros did not know what to make of the circumstances.

       "Here they are," Jeremy 

       _You write a lot? Ward wondered, looking at all the random sheets that had fallen out of the bag while the owner was going through it._

       "Do you write a lot?" Kiros asked for his companion though his attention was focused on the inspection of Jeremy's cards.

       "Anthropology project," the other explained, making a face, "but not by choice."

       _Well, you know, Ward attested proudly, __I would have been an anthro major had I not switched to app-phys and mech-e in my junior year._

       Jeremy could not decipher what the big man meant solely on kinesics.

       Ward turned to Kiros for the translation but he was too busy scrutinizing the cards.

       Stiltzkin, meanwhile, had grown tired of being ignored, and sensing no one who would take him up on a brawl, turned back to Jeremy and resumed kicking his shoes.  The deep crimson color of the ball on his antenna regressed back to a less-wary peach.

       _Does that bug you? Ward wondered, referring to the continuous string of kicks._

       Jeremy wore a blank expression on his face.

       Kiros was too busy reading Jeremy's information out loud to notice that Ward again needed help getting his point across.

       "Name: Chapter, Jeremy," the president's aide pronounced, "POB: Trabia, Education…oh!  It says here you actually matriculated in their Garden for awhile."

       "Right," Jeremy confirmed, debating with himself whether he should compliment Kiros' reading skills or not.

       "You got this Galbadian border patrol stamp just yesterday!" Kiros noted, pointing at the stamp on the passport.

       "Yeah," Jeremy said, unsure if he should compliment the man for his sleuthing skills.

       "What were you doing there?" demanded Kiros.

       "You can't ask me that!" Jeremy demurred.  "I have rights!"

       "Not here you don't," Kiros told him.

       _Actually he does, but whatever, Ward signaled to his partner._

       Kiros ignored the comment and repeated more forcefully, "Tell me what you were doing or we're going to detain you for a few days to check on your background."

       _You don't actually have the power to do that, Ward hinted._

       _I'm well aware of that, genius, Kiros thought.  __Let's see if he buys it._

_       Meanwhile, realizing that his method was ineffective, Stiltzkin moved to Jeremy's other shoe and began to kick it more fervently than he had the first one._

       "I was gathering data for my anthro project," Jeremy muttered finally, moving his leg to check the moogle's activity.  Stiltzkin's antenna bulb turned red instantly and he flew back a few feet to avoid the kick and scratched his head.  After observing that there was no further danger, the moogle scratched his head until his bulb's color faded back to an off-orange and he hopped back happily to pick up his leg routine where he had left it.

       "You were gathering information in Galbadia?" Kiros asked.

       "They had an anti-Malboro campaign going on," Jeremy elucidated, "so I helped out."

       "Anything interesting happen?" Kiros inquired.

       _That's really none of our business, Ward registered._

       "That's none of your business," Jeremy spelled out for him.

       "I get paid to know things," Kiros told him, "and to find out what I don't know."

       Seeing his addressee still reluctant to reveal what he wanted to know, Kiros stamped the ground and barked, "So spill it!"

       Jeremy scowled, but finally answered, "Just this girl Mina who ran our errands.  She was really helpful in the side-effects research and locating the recent, fatal cases."

       "And you were doing this for a class?" Kiros questioned again to make sure.

       Jeremy nodded over ardently and feigned a cocktail party smile.

       Kiros checked the identification card again and pointed out, "This isn't a student's ID though."

       To himself he said, _Don't get smart with me, kid_.

       "My academy blew up the same time Trabia Garden did," Jeremy declared.  _Don't get dumb with me, Kiros_.

       But instead of what he was thinking, he said, "I'm not currently enrolled in any particular institution."

       Stiltzkin was now amusing himself by kicking dust on Jeremy's pants.

       "For whom are you doing all this work then?" Kiros demanded.

       "I'm taking one of those online courses," the other replied.

       "You have an answer for everything, don't you?" Kiros put forth, having hoped so hard to catch the man in a lie.

       "Oh, you mean the _truth_," Jeremy laughed derisively.

       "I'm going to have to see your papers," Kiros announced quickly to save face.

       Jeremy cut his laugh off abruptly and listlessly reached in his pocket for what appeared to be a crumpled document.

       "You just got in to Winhill today!" Kiros remarked in surprise after examining the form.

       "And boy has it been a pleasurable stay so far!" Jeremy informed, adding a fake smile.

       "What are you doing here?" Kiros demanded, shoving the papers and the cards into Jeremy's chest.  He didn't do too fine a job because the conglomeration slipped through his fingers and fell to the ground.

       "My…anthropology…project," Jeremy said very slowly for Kiros, figuring that the point would finally get through this time around, "which you interrupted."

       Stiltzkin caught each item before it hit the ground, jumping up and snatching the last floating sheet of paper.  These he whisked back to Jeremy's satchel and rushed back to where he could best perform his kicking, which he was sure would eventually take effect.

       Ward was growing impatient just standing around without having had anything to drink.

       _Ask him how long he is staying while you are at it, he proposed._

       "That was actually my next move," Kiros whispered back, trying to hide the fact that he originally had no next move.

       Ward sniffed contemptuously.

       "How long are you planning to stay in these parts?" Kiros questioned, making an obvious attempt to sound intelligent after his extended pause.

       "I can't stay long," Jeremy answered.

       "I need something more definite, son," Kiros stated, shaking his head.

       "No more than three days, and I'm not your son," Jeremy corrected.  _ And I don't care what you need_.

       Kiros was somewhat ruffled, but he kept his composure and went on to inquire, "What were you scribbling down before we showed up?"

       "How would I know how long you were watching me before you started chucking rocks?" Jeremy retorted.

       _The boy has a point, Ward perceived._

       "Just cooperate and answer the question," Kiros said, going on to explain, "It couldn't have been related to your project because there isn't anything around here anthropological to study."

       _Humor him, Ward implored Jeremy, __for he knows not what he is doing._

       Jeremy sighed and replied, "If you _must_ know, my novel."

       "What is it about?" Kiros wanted to know.

       _How Ifrit ate Kiros, Jeremy made up quickly but ended up vocalizing, "How it would feel to suddenly discover a brother you never knew you had." _

       Kiros was considering how dandy the topic was when Ward shook him out of his trance and drew his notice to the book lying by Jeremy's bag. 

_       I recognize that book, he alleged.  __In fact, _I wrote it.__

       Kiros smirked, remembering how Ward bragged about the same, single book that he published during _every_ drinking party they attended.

       "Why are you claiming to be on an anthropology-related excursion when you're clearly lugging around a text book on differential equations?" Kiros asked.  _Caught you now!_

_       Though clearly surprised at Kiros' newfound intuitive abilities, Jeremy found the right words and answered, "Because non-linear, n-th order, non-homogeneous differential equations are a bitch and I'll need to know them if I want to pass the entrance exam for SeeD training later this week."  _

       _Maybe we should just leave him alone now, Ward reflected, _unless, of course, he wants tutoring_._

       Now fully convinced of Jeremy's harmlessness, and partly because he didn't want to witness Ward's chest swell with pride any more than he had to, Kiros abruptly proposed to the boy, "Do you want to play some cards?"

       "Uh, no thank you, I have a lot of work to do," Jeremy declined, and then added, "That and the fact that I don't know you at all."

       Kiros drew back at the rebuff but then realized that his challenge for a game was rather absurd, considering they had just met.  _Why did I suddenly feel the urge to challenge him to a game of cards?_

       Stiltzkin had by now acquired a stick and after testing its durability, drew it back and then swung it forward into Jeremy's shin.  The whack was accompanied by a stinging sensation that caused the man to jump. 

       "Hey," Jeremy protested, "quit that!"

       Stiltzkin kept whacking him with the intent of keeping his attention.

       Jeremy tried to take the stick from him but he held it behind his back, safely out of reach.

       "You're obviously not its master," Kiros commented, noting the creature's blatant insubordination.

       "I never said I was," Jeremy said, deciding the best way to drive the moogle off would be to swat him, though Stiltzkin easily maneuvered out of the way of each swing.

       "So he just follows you around and kicks your shoes?" Kiros asked curiously.

       "Pretty much," Jeremy answered.

       "I fail to see why you keep him around," Kiros commented.

       "Stiltzkin is a _great_ traveler," Jeremy insisted.  "We exchange notes about places that one of us has been and the other hasn't.  Cuts travel fares by half."

       "I know _you're_ doing it for the anthropology grade, but what's in it for the moogle?" Kiros questioned.

       Jeremy replied knowingly, "Stiltzkin is in the search for four hundred Cactus Thorns to refine into four 'Hundred Needles' and use them all with a Rosetta Stone, which he doesn't have either."

       _And that way he'll be invincible, Ward mused.  __Pretty clever for a moogle._

       Kiros smirked without the sufficient tact to hide it from the moogle's notice.

       Turning to face Kiros, Stiltzkin yipped as ferociously as a cute moogle could, ""Kupo ku-ku-kupo kupo-po kupo ku-ku-po kupo-po ku-kupo kupo kupo kupo!"

       Kiros dropped his smirk and exchanged looks with Ward.  They both looked to Jeremy as the interpreter, but the answer was did not come.

       "Kupo ku-ku-kupo kupo-po kupo ku-ku-po kupo-po ku-kupo kupo kupo kupo!" Stiltzkin woofed and stuck out a pint-sized moogle tongue.

       "Why does he always say the same thing?" Kiros asked Jeremy, scratching his head.

       Jeremy blinked, not really following what Kiros just said.

       "They were completely different statements," he remarked tentatively.

       "Kupo ku-ku-kupo kupo-po kupo ku-ku-po kupo-po ku-kupo kupo kupo kupo!" Stiltzkin cried at Kiros in response.

       "See!" Kiros shouted triumphantly, "There he goes again!"

       Jeremy removed his cap, ran his fingers through the blonde half of his hair in the front of his head, and then scratched the dark hair in the back before putting the cap back on.

       "I think it sounds all the same to you because you aren't listening very closely," Jeremy said after at length.

       "Oboete okeyo kono chikkoi kedama wa itsudemo anta o buchinomeshite yattsukete yareru karana!" the moogle growled as he stood up straighter and pointed at his fluffy chest.

       While noticeably different, the cry was still as indecipherable as if it were still moogleese to Kiros.

       "What did it just say?" Kiros demanded, seeing how hard Jeremy was trying to suppress a chuckle.

       "'_This little white fur-ball could kick your ass any day of the week'," he finally translated, "'and don't you forget that!'  It's just Japanese."_

       Ward found the declaration equally amusing and roared with sniggered along with Jeremy.

       "Kono kaban o omae no nodo no oku ni tsukkonde yaru!" the moogle threatened menacingly, shaking his left fist while hopping up and down.  He proceeded to motion towards his scroll-filled backpack and then point at Kiros.

       Jeremy had to hold on to the chocobo crossing sign to keep from falling.  Kiros was getting red at being left out of the loop.  He raised his hands in question.

       "This is too funny," Jeremy but went on, "'I'm going to take my satchel and stuff it down your throat!'"

       Ward cackled beside himself, much to his colleague's dismay.

       "Moshi mata chikayotte kitara ore no paatonaa to futari de koroshite yaru," Stiltzkin continued without mercy, deliberately overdoing the last syllable for finality, and then dusted off its paws and walked away.

       "'Come near me and my partner again and I'll end you'," Jeremy finished up the translation.

       _So much for your bid for public relations chair, Ward gestured to Kiros who didn't find that entire exchange amusing at all._

       "I think we should leave now," Kiros whispered to Ward.

       _That was actually my next move, Ward noted._

       As they hurried away, Ward looked back for a second when he heard an exclamation from Jeremy, apparently induced by an unexpected whack administered by the mad moogle with a stick.

       When he turned back to Kiros again, he found that his comrade had stopped.  Looking ahead, he saw why.

       "What do you know?" Kiros spoke amusedly.  "He managed to climb up all this way by himself!"

       Laguna's head was visible just above the edge of the crevice, but he was having trouble 

       "I hope you didn't drop the cat," was Kiros' first statement.

       "Glad to know where _your _concerns lie," Laguna grumbled bitterly.  _Ow!  My hands are hurting as much as my leg!_

       "What took you so long?" Kiros asked him.

       "What do _you_ know?" Laguna rejoined defensively.  "There were some nasty Blitzes down there…you know, those shadow-like creatures."

       "I hear another characteristic that have is some sort of invisibility that only random, nondescript Lagunas can see through," Kiros agreed pensively.

       A lesser Laguna with an extra arm would have flagged him off for so crude a joke.  As it happened though, _this Laguna had his arms full of cat fur and rope.  He noted to himself to remember to flag Kiros off once he was on stable ground._

       "Holy Shiva!" Kiros exclaimed.  "Look at the cat!"

       Laguna and Ward both looked.  To silence the animal earlier, Laguna had clamped his fingers around its neck.  In the past half hour, those fingers had not budged.

       "She looks rather pale," Kiros stated after surveying the limp figure.

       "It's a white cat!" Laguna returned quickly.  "She is _supposed_ to be pale."

       "She didn't look like a white cat to me when you first dove after her," Kiros said.

       _Not to mention she didn't look comatose either, Ward added._

       "At least I didn't drop her," Laguna pointed out meekly.

       _Just give up on this one, Ward advised him.  __There is no way you can win this argument._

       "Just help me up," Laguna said, deciding to deal with one problem at a time.

       "Hand over the cat and then I'll grab your arm," Kiros said.

       "Just help me up first," Laguna pleaded.  _I can't hold on much longer._

       "Hand over the cat," Kiros repeated.  _If I get the cat, I won't need to help him up._

       Laguna was about to comply when something occurred to him.  _If he gets the cat, he won't need to help me up!_

       "If I hand over the cat first, you won't help me up," he protested.

       "Of course I will," Kiros lied.  _Diablos take him!  Who told him?  Ward, it had to have been Ward!_

       "Of course you will what?" Laguna demanded clarification.

       "Of course I will," Kiros repeated.

       "You'll what?" rephrased Laguna.  "Help me or not help me up?"

       "Help you," Kiros finally chose.

       "You promise?" Laguna asked naively.

       "Mercenary's Honor," Kiros swore.  _Fat chance._

       Ward could not hide his grin, realizing that "Mercenary's Honor" was a standard term in the Galbadian army handbook to be used by the beholden to wheedle his way out of 412 possible predicaments without perjuring himself.  _If Laguna hadn't skipped class that day and actually transcribed the notes himself instead of Xeroxing them and changing the name at the top, he would have remembered that invoking the "Mercenary's Honor" ruse as an oath to rescue a domesticated animal from a madman in a crevice was clearly stated as situation 184, and thus was perfectly legal._

       Laguna trustingly handed over the cat.  In the process he almost let go of the rope, and had his timing, attention, and luck been less impeccable, he would not have been able to find it again.   

       "Is it still breathing?" Kiros asked, evidently missing Laguna's near life-and-death experience.

       Somewhat galled, Laguna growled in response, "It had better be."

       _Are you sure the bartender's cat is white? Ward deliberated._

       "It's close enough," Laguna evaded, "now help me up."

       "Why doesn't this cat have a collar?" Kiros questioned, rubbing his chin.

       _Seems like a stray to me, Ward piped in.  _Are you sure someone owns it?__

       Laguna's only response was stunned silence.

       "That's not the right cat," Laguna muttered grimly, wondering how best to throw a fit.

       Kiros and Ward burst out into laughter and Laguna hid his face behind him hands in shame.  Inadvertently this action left him without any hand with which to hang on to the rope, and before any of them realized it, he had begun his blind plunge back into the shadowy depths from which he had strove so long to climb out.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	16. Setting 13: 2041 DAY 15, Nova Trabia Gar...

Setting 13: 2041 DAY 15, Nova Trabia Garden Officers' Lounge 1F 

_"Captaining this venture was a woman."_

-Vergil

_Aeneid I_

          _S_elphie couldn't tell for sure if her legs were still attached to her body.  Usually even if she worked hard and long enough to lose the ability to communicate with her lower body's nervous system, she could make sure just by looking down and do a quick check with her eyes. Today was different though.  Today, she was visually challenged.

       _I hope no one sees me with these on, she worried.  The officer lounge looked empty when she came in and plopped down on awkwardly over-sized SeeD-approved sofas.  It seemed safe enough to whip out her binocular-like spectacles and try to ascertain the current status of her thigh-hip connections.  After some struggle to lean forward far enough to see both of her waxed legs in their entirety, she sighed happily and sank back into the huge sofa.  It was surprisingly easy to sink into.  _I wonder if anyone would notice if this thing swallowed me.__

       In fact, the plushy material had come up so far around the edges of her body that she was becoming aware of the danger of being totally engulfed.  As the sofa continued to adjust itself and pour itself out around her contour, Selphie felt the need to question whether her slim shape just happened to afford the sofa maximal absorption capabilities or if she was heavy enough to continuously displace the sofa stuffing with no apparent diminishing marginal rate of return.  Both possibilities frightened her, and so she decided it was a good time to stand up.

       Much to her dismay, the harder she fought, the quicker she sank.  Pretty soon, she was completely immersed in sofa plush.  Had Selphie not left her nunchakus on the common table beside her construction portfolio, daily Garden news sheet, and evening officer reports, she would have tore the couch apart.  The sentiment of regret coursed pitifully through her veins.

       Deciding to look on the bright side, Selphie decided to check herself out while she was hidden from view.  For some reason she felt fat even though she could not locate single locus of flab to grip.  Half cheered, she reflected, _Well, if anything, eating disorders only apply to Rinoa._

       The sofa had covered her face for awhile now, mashing her glasses against her face, and the number of things less pleasant than that feeling was coming dangerously close to approaching the number of times Irvine hit his mark that one time they hired him to assassinate the Sorceress – zero.  After much straining and less than comfortable contorting, she managed to remove her eyeglasses and return them into the pocket of her orange jump suit.

       "Wait!  Back up a minute!" Selphie corrected herself out loud.  "My sweaty…itchy…ugly construction uniform."

       A fair amount of effort went into producing the desired, caustically emphatic effect for the last words in the pronouncement.  Another flood of remorse raced through her.  _Tonberry be damned!  I left my orange skirt in my suitcase!_

       Selphie began bawling, wishing earnestly to be sitting in the standard-issue, conference-room-style, upright chair by the common table where she could just reach down into her suitcase and produce her casual dress.  She missed her dress and freedom so much that she started to list aloud the number of things she would give up just to have access to those two things.

       Her day had been awful and even now, when she finally had a moment to herself, it showed no sign of getting better.  _Unless of course, she griped to herself, _one considers being swallowed by a sofa and kept from the rest of the world forever a great way to top off a day of various accidents at the construction site, losing a contact lens, and getting trounced in the intro to engineering with applications class by the level 4 SeeD students!__

       Selphie could not understand why the rest of the group had it so easy.  There was no tangible reason that she could think of that might explain Headmaster Cid's decision to have her supervise construction all by herself.  Just because she had uploaded her personal journal online and organized the Balamb Garden Festival Committee for extracurricular functions, he and everyone else automatically assumed she was enthused with the idea of directing the ground crew.  To tell the truth, she deeply resented having to perpetuate her cheery disposition 24-7.  It made everyone think she actually liked having all this responsibility and being the last officer to clock out every evening.  Selphie's mood went from light showers to treacherous downpour on the analogous weather meter.

       _It isn't fair, she fussed, __how Squall can just sit by the beach and ignore the problems of the world when I get to rebuild an entire Garden?_

       Selphie really did want to help rebuild her home Garden, but what meant by "help" did not go so far as to include the totally unattractive role of wearing a construction hat, misinterpreting messy, indecipherable blueprints, being embarrassed in front of the workers when she held them up, or trying to remain undaunted by the humiliation she felt when they finally found it convenient to point out just how wrong she was.  The ratio between the number of orders she announced through the distastefully masculine-sounding loudspeaker and number of declarations she had to make rescinding her previous order was fast approaching one to two because she had gotten herself in the habit of botching every initial order of correction.

       _On the bright side, she confessed stormily, _after these past two weeks, I've proved myself so completely inept to every worker that I have no more face to lose.__

       She thought about what she just admitted.  _Is that good or bad?_

       She observed nothing but silence for a few minutes, wondering which of the many events of her day was most responsible for her feeling so crabby and dissatisfied with everyone in the world, including herself.

       _And that Irvine! she protested with nostrils flaring.  __Where is he?  He's been site-seeing with Zell for the past two weeks._

       More meekly and perhaps even resentfully, she added, _Why couldn't he have taken me?_

_       The missing words "instead of Zell" at the end of her thought were implied._

       _Oh, wait, she caught herself just in time with a sudden blush that surprised her, __there is no way I'm going to think about him._

       But even in that almost insignificantly short span of time she took to bring him up, Selphie had somehow managed to frown and miss his company.  But what was there to miss when all he did was prod her into smacking him, or acting so goofy that it would be impossible to take him seriously anytime afterwards, or censure his wandering eyes and arms when he snuck away from her to hang around, and oftentimes all over, Quistis and those squealing SeeD trainees.  If a facial reproach was not the remedy, a lengthy verbal castigation or in some extreme cases a de-cleating, full-body tackle could be relied on to keep him in order.  Eden knows how mad he made her sometimes!

       Selphie's countenance darkened at the cognizance of the possibility that Irvine was having the time of his life with whatever and whomever he might find titillating, having finally escaped her tyrannical clutches.  _Not that there is any reason why he should not be allowed check out other females since he is not beholden to me._

       Immediately after that thought, her eyebrows quivered for a second as a new, scary idea dawned upon her.  _Why should his spending time on other girls bother me unless-_

       _Impossible!  she broke into her own train of thought furiously and quickly dismissed it in all of its absurdity.  For some reason though, the possibility was so overwhelming and had caught her so completely off guard that it had created a suffocating effect and threw off her breathing patterns.  She would rather be daily ravished by three Behemoths simultaneously than go out with him!   It was unlikely that any of the teenybopper Garden interns would pass him up, though, so she resolved to make sure that it would be the end for whoever so much as batted her eyes, licked her lips, tossed her hair, giggled, ran her eyes over him head to toe, brushed his fingers past his arm, or jutted her hips in his direction.  It would be literally the end._

       Forcing herself to move on to the next topic, she wondered what besides Irvine's absence, which she could and had plainly ruled out, could induce her to feel so depressed and crabby?

       _It could be a number of things, Selphie acknowledged with a sad sigh.  __Where do I start?_

       She revisited first the awful three hours during which she whipped all the workers through the demolition of a good two days' work because she had read the plans wrong.  All the while she had prayed that Squall would not notice that they were tearing more structures down than they were putting up, but with his constant dereliction of office, it was by no great feat of providence that Squall never stumbled upon the deconstruction site and wonder what was going on.

       The wrecking crew had been doing a satisfactory job, but morale was low so she went down to the ground floor and tried to inspire everyone with her presence as a figurehead.  Her decision, she soon realized, was badly miscalculated, and the most probable reason why morale had fallen in the first place was because of her interference.

       Selphie whimpered ashamedly at the recollection of poking her nose into the area marked for leveling via explosives.  In retrospect, just bugging the jackhammer operators would have been a better idea than observing the detonation team's progress without the protocol safety goggles.  But she had found the eyewear too bulky to put on her face and clashed too much with her orange construction uniform to include it in her wardrobe, even for five minutes.  And now Selphie was sorry.

       She rubbed her left eye, still swollen from catching that nasty bit of concrete shard, picked up by the mischievous wind and insidiously carried over to her side.  She had cried in pain and instead of just waiting for medical support, had rubbed it furiously, working up a storm in the inflamed socket and a great deal of huff from her.  On top of all that, the oppressive sunlight that had been bearing down on her all week was very near giving her a heat stroke to go with the  distastefully dark tan.  The temperature had become so unbearable in the construction uniform that after the accident occurred, she just threw it off without caring if she had anything on underneath.  It just so happened that she had her skimpy but trusty orange skirt to cover her.

       Still, her body was gleaming with sweat as she stepped out of her own personal oven of a costume, and because of her crippled left eye that resembled a wink, her every action was misconstrued as an invitation for a pick-up line.  It was beyond her workers to grasp the concept of ethnographic analysis, in the true, semiotic approach of ethnography, of her non-wink, or twitch, as opposed to a wink, so every guy in the quad-to-be thought he had a date with her this coming weekend.  It was not beyond her to realize after a few failed attempts to educate them that all additional attempts would be futile as well, and that she would just have to bear their swooning, just like she had to bear her job.

       Meanwhile, her impairment was bad enough to make Selphie relinquish the use of the contact lens in that eye, though she stubbornly tried to walk around for another hour with just one contact.  The lustier passersby tried to hit on her, mistaking her for being drunk _and winking at them.  Those she dispersed with screams of harassment through her still fully functional loudspeaker.  After that, she felt it wiser to restore the accursed orange jump suit to her body, but unwilling to risk sunstroke, she decided to pack her orange skirt in her briefcase._

       Eventually, after stumbling around like she was learning to walk all over again, Selphie had to take out the remaining contact and toss it on the ground.  Not satisfied with just doing that, Selphie retraced her steps and made sure that she had trodden over it.  This flurry of kicks and stomps was veneered by her hopping up and down on it.  The students who walked past her during her episode took it with more consternation than confusion, and only one gathered enough courage to ask her if she needed help finding the infirmary.  She tried to dunk him in the nearby fountain, of course, but whether because her eye was hurting so much or because of the lingering fear in the back of her head that she might hurt him due to the lack of water in the fountain, she stayed her hand and settled with just knocking him over.

       A further nuisance, which Selphie did not look forward to handling, was calling up one of her aides at her Balamb office to have her send replacement contact lens via Chocobo Express.  Each pair had been prescribed by Dr. Kadowaki as being effective for one month of wear.  Selphie had planned for her next replacement set to be shipped to her along with all the other domestic supplies by the biweekly transport.  She had not planned on discarding her current set of contacts so soon and have to wait for that transport's next arrival, still a lamentable number of days away.

       Deeply nested in between the folds of the sofa, Selphie shivered at the realization of the cost of an overnight delivery via Chocobo Express for her contacts.  Even if she had 100,000 Gil to burn, she wasn't sure if they would get it to her all in one, or in this case, two pieces.

       _While they're usually dependable, she fretted, _every now and then you get a chocobo rider who misreads his map, confuses his routes, or lights up the chocobo's apportioned __Gysahl Greens and smokes it on the road._  __What you end up with is a hungry and unforgiving chocobo who will eat its rider when he gets so high from the fumes that he falls off the mount. ___

_       Selphie remembered other bizarre cases where either the chocobo or the rider grew hungry enough to exhaust both the chocobo's feed and its tag and began eating the contents of the package they were delivering.  She cringed at the thought at what her contacts tasted like. For this order, she would need a well-fed chocobo with abnormally brisk feet and a well-fed rider who wouldn't be smashed on some random toxin, on the leg of the trip to her anyway.___

       If Selphie's arms had wider ranges of motions, she would have covered her face in despair; she hadn't begun to list the number of natural mishaps that could arise on any trip, including a sprained ankle on land, a torn wing muscle during the overseas flight, a thunderstorm, or a head-on collision with another chocobo going its maximum speed.

       She sighed loudly and miserably.  _Chocobos are everywhere!  Chocobo taxis, chocobo air lifts, other chocobo mail carriers, and even fast-food chocobo delivery boys!_

       Danger, it seemed, was ubiquitous if not imminent.

       Selphie considered the alternate solution of buying a new set from Dr. Kadowaki in the Nova Trabia Garden infirmary down the hall.  _How much did they cost again?_

       Selphie almost cried when she recalled the figure she paid for her last set.  After the initial purchase had put a nice gapping hole in her budget, the additional purchase of a second set, a decision made largely in response to her foresight that now turned out to be quite propitious, had sucked her credit dry and then some.

       Tears forced their way out of her swollen eye sockets at the remembrance of the number of experiences she had during that period when Squall refused to drive her from Balamb Garden to the town store to buy items for her womanly needs.  The Garden infirmary did not provide them, and for all the Gil that Rinoa got from her daily allowance from her father or that Quistis received from Garden benefits as a SeeD instructor or Nida from similar benefits as a heavy-machinery operator, none of them were ever willing to lend her any from their own respective stocks.  Every time Selphie had an emergency situation, they refused.

       Thus deprived of aid and bereft of both a ride to town and the means to take a choco-cab, poor Selphie was forced to run from the Garden to the Balamb store and suffer a myriad of itchy and uncomely Bite Bug welts.  She was not particularly happy with Rinoa, the richest one of the three who had spare Gil, not bailing her out.

_       But I showed Rinoa! she affirmed proudly.  __I stole the entire box of chocobolates from the Balamb Garden cafeteria and made off with all of Zell's coveted hot dogs!_

       She was not sure what any of her grievances had to do with Zell, but she was sure he had to be punished anyway.  Surely someone had to reimburse her for the humiliation to which she had been subject even after she'd entered the town.

_       It might as well be Zell, she figured._

       She preferred to ignore the blatant _non sequitur _and focus on how far she had to stoop to amass the money needed to buy the products she badly needed.  The store manager refused to budge an inch, as if some charity in light of Selphie's plight would kill him.  In order to procure the required Gil, Selphie had to hobble around town, soliciting for donations and oftentimes receiving instead the rude kicks that beggars have to risk and, once incurred, endure.  Repeated occurrences had eaten away so much of her dignity that it was a wonder to Selphie herself how in the Ifrit she had managed to not to just surrender herself to do any of the "favors" the choco-cab driver requested in place of the taxi fare, as she could have debased herself any more than she already had.  

_       No! she told herself forcefully.  __I'm better than that!_

       And yet, she could not dismiss the stifling disbelief that covered her when she evaluated where all her efforts had gotten her – this fine mess.

_       All because of some contacts!  Selphie marveled in disgust mixed with dissatisfaction.  __Contacts to which I don't even have access!_

       Selphie's eyes narrowed at the thought of Dr. Kadowaki again.  While she was out begging for pocket change the good doctor had passed by in her shiny new sedan, never bothering to cast a glance in her direction.  Given a choice though, Selphie would have preferred anonymity for she was not proud of what she was doing.  Once classy car had even splashed a good deal of roadside filth that had collected in a murky pothole onto Selphie's leg.  At the time she had been in such a state of desperation and embarrassment that there was little problem in resolving not to press for reparations.

       Selphie now wondered how Dr. Kadowaki could afford so expensive a ride.

       _No doctor can possibly make that much from customary wages, Selphie analyzed, _unless he makes huge rips off of fraudulently bloated fees.__

       The truth hit Selphie like a bag of bricks.  _To Diablos with it!  The price for my contacts is outrageous enough!_

       Until just then, she had no idea that being gypped could feel so awful.  The connection she made between her penury, the so-called "specially-priced contact lens," and Dr. Kadowaki's wealth bore a gnawing hole through the back of her throat and into the depths of her stomach.  It was only fitting that the drilling effect be implemented figuratively on her organs as it had already put a figurative hole in the pocket that contained her wallet.  It was painstakingly obvious to Selphie that while her skirt never afforded her the luxury of a pocket, the fact did not preclude her losing the luxury of having a purse or any kind of luxury at all.__

_       Unsurprisingly the results of her comparing the price of a brand new set of contacts to that of the overnight Chocobo Express delivery for the last five minutes were inconclusive.  The only conclusion she had reached was the certainty of her maliciously complete destitution to complement her tragic career as a construction forewoman and visual impairment, the remedy of both of which were still very much in question._

       _Well that's just GREAT!!! she screamed internally with no one particular addressee in mind.  _I hope you all rot in hell!  And take Diablos with you!__

       She flailed helplessly in the sofa's unrelenting clutches, venting all her bitterness on the imperturbable buffer between her and the rest of the world.  It got her nowhere, and after a moment, when fatigue finally overcame her, Selphie settled down and sulked quietly.

       _It can't all be bad, she reasoned.  _I'm sure there has to have been at least one part of the day that was good.__

       She searched and searched and searched.

       "Crap_-dammit!" she cursed.  "Nothing at all!"_

       _Well this is clearly unfortunate, she huffed, but then considered, _What about my lunch break?__

_       Selphie's eyes flashed at the suggestion.  She had forgotten all about her lunch break, and if there was anything she could count on to brighten her day, it would be that._

       _At least that's what Rinoa always said, Selphie thought gingerly, _Rinoa, who has never had a job in her life!__

       She briefly wondered if all her hostility towards her fair-skinned companion was legitimate.  Passing over the fact that Rinoa was probably having the time of her life, lounging around the sun deck at Balamb Garden without a care in the world, Selphie still had cause to furrow her brows and grind her teeth together.  It wasn't because Rinoa was selfish or because she was dead rich and spoiled, but because Selphie was sure that her girl friend probably had a more expensive, classier, heartier, and in all ways better lunch than she did.

       _Face it, Selphie, she told herself, __Rinoa has everything better, maybe because she's better in every way._

_        If she tried she might have been able to slap herself.  _What are you thinking, stupid!  No way is Rinoa better than me!__

       The conviction disappeared from her face again and she moped, "Then why does everyone gawk at her and why does her skin glisten like a lady?"__

_       The sterner side of Selphie replied, __I can be a lady too._

       Nodding, she straightened up and affirmed with resolve, "Of course I can!  I can be gentile!  I can be elegant!"

       The less confident side of Selphie recoiled and shakily posed, _But then why is she given chopsticks at 'Garden Ricebox' every time she sits down at a table?_

       Selphie frowned at the illumination of inequality in service.  _Yeah, they always give me a fork!_

       _That can't be because Rinoa looks__ Asian, can it? her confident side scoffed._

       "No, that is too simple an explanation," she mumbled under her breath and continued to rack her brains for another solution.

       _Trust me, her more self-assured side continued, _it's because you look Caucasian.__

       "The restaurant doesn't discriminate!" Selphie chuckled, dismissing the outrageous notion.  "Besides, Rinoa isn't even Asian."

       _Not even with her black hair, how she orders her meals in some oriental dialect or tips the waiter in yen?  her confidence sneered at her._

       _You shut up! her insecure side disagreed in a manner quite unlike her insecure side.  _It's obviously because Rinoa is a better person.__

       _Are you off your rocker? her confidence screamed in return.  __I'm definitely better than that-_

       "Enough!" Selphie cried, officially ending the conversation with herself.

       Having put her foot down, figuratively, she tried to ignore the sickening feeling churning wildly in her bowels.  It was sickening because she remembered how even when she and Rinoa went to 'Garden Ricebox' together, Rinoa would always receive chopsticks without having to ask, and she just the opposite.  If Rinoa was reserving seats before her party arrived, every seat would have a pair of chopsticks in front of it.  If Selphie herself arrived early, a fork marked each seat.  Each experience renewed the stigma of it all, just like being branded over and over by a hot poker in the same place to reveal the desiccated scar that her heart had tried so hard to heal.

       "They gave me a fork today," Selphie mumbled sadly, "even though I didn't eat with Rinoa."

       She couldn't decide if the latter part of her sentence was propitious or not.  Frankly she was in no mood to give Squall's little burden another thought.__

       Selphie focused on what happened at 'Garden Ricebox' during her most recent lunch break.  She had ordered beef wonton noodle soup but they had given her the item without wontons.  Their argument was that the soup in which the noodle was immersed had been saved from boiling the wontons.  Technically they reserved the right to give or withhold wontons from the beef noodle with soup from wonton boiling.  They also lectured her on how she should have specified her desire for wontons by ordering the beef wonton noodle soup with wontons.  At first she had tried to argue with them, pointing out that it seemed redundant to use the term wanton twice in the name of a single dish, but the head cook had snapped at her how ordering beef noodle soup instead of beef wonton noodle soup implied that the noodle was made of beef.

       At that time Selphie was still convinced that she could win the debate so summoning all her courage, she pointed out to him that because there were no separate slices of beef in the noodle soup and that all the beef happened to be in the wontons, 'Garden Ricebox' would be falsely advertising if they gave her beef wonton noodle soup without either the beef or the wontons.  Had the head waitress not stopped her husband, the chef would have smacked Selphie with whatever blunt utensil he happened to be holding just then.  Unfortunately for Selphie the head waitress was more polemical than her spouse and had a much better grasp of the English language.  The woman had proceeded to point out how beef wonton noodle soup without wontons could still technically qualify as what the restaurant advertised because even if there was no beef in the bowl itself, the soup had been made in part from wontons in which beef had been wrapped.  Thus, the essence of the beef pervaded the soup which now filled the bowl of noodles.  Further, had they included separate slices or chunks of beef, they would have to change the name of the dish from beef wonton noodle soup to beef wonton noodle stew, and anyone could see that it was not a stew.

       Thus sinking all of Selphie's hopes to acquire her wontons and squelching any cause for further complaints, the head waitress left her crying at her lonely table, wishing Irvine had been sitting next to her during the polemic and act goofy enough to draw the brunt of the restaurant staff's wrath. 

       Any appetite she had left disappeared when she realized that she had not specified which of the eight types of noodle she wanted in her noodle soup; all their noodle soups could be served with eight different types of noodle, and by not asking for the third type, her favorite because each strand was wide and soft, she ended up with the stringy, hair-like noodle which was impossible to pick up without the use of chopsticks.  Selphie glared at the smirking waitress, completely aware that this predicament had been the evil woman's plan all along.

       Not ameliorating the situation at all was the fact that the default stringy noodle was also the most expensive of the eight noodles.  Selphie was not unaware of the waitress' calculation of this small detail either.  Once, two dining experiences previous to that one, she had gotten into heated argument with the head waitress about the validity of charging more for the default option than a specialty.  That confrontation had left her in tears as well.

       So then, because both her appetite and utensils were been lacking, Selphie had been doubly unable to eat her wontonless beef wonton noodle soup, by now cooled to a stone-cold, gruesome, curdled block of grease.  The smartest thing she could think of doing was paying for the meal and attempt to strut out of the restaurant in her gritty construction uniform with as much pride in each step as she could muster.  That activity, too, was discouraged when the cashier chased after her while flinging the loftiest bunch of invectives she had heard in a long time, demanding that she leave at least fifteen percent over the bill for gratuity.  It didn't matter to him if Selphie was exactly zero percent grateful and wanted a complete refund for a dish she hadn't touched, he just had to have 3 Gil before she was allowed to walk out the door.

       Later that day there would be floating around the underclassmen student body the rumor of a level A SeeD dressed in an ugly construction uniform, wailing her heart out at the entrance of 'Garden Ricebox', trying vainly to shell out the 3 Gil she needed to buy her freedom.

       It suddenly occurred to Selphie, sitting snugly where she was, that being trapped in the sofa was probably the safest place to be.  This furniture-induced asylum of hers was a pseudo-treat-yourself, organically healing getaway where she wouldn't have to be bothered by anyone and could have time to herself.  She hadn't felt this state of peacefulness since she planted those three rosebushes at daybreak, right before she had to don her jump suit and prove her incompetence to the world yet again.  They had taken her awhile, but she was an early riser and she enjoyed the tranquility of the dawn.  Besides, the roses never complained, letting her do her job the way _she wanted to._

       Selphie's face revealed a grin.  At the expense of sounding redundant, which she felt she could comfortably afford, she celebrated internally, _It's my personal Selphie-time!_

       Just then she heard the hissing sound of the automatic door opening, followed shortly by the clicking sound of a pair of high heels.  Selphie groaned on reflex.  _Just great!_

       Sunken though she was inside the sofa, she could smell the distinctive lily scent that now flooded the air.  Only one person she knew could be reeking of so much perfume, that scrawny, whiny, little-

       "Instructor Tilmitt?" the SeeD trainee called out in a prissy, squeaking, high-pitched voice.

       Selphie rolled her eyes.  It was clear that little miss Lily, also a daddy's little girl like some blue-and-black-clad General's daughter she knew, was poking her nose inside the restricted officer's lounge to see what it looked like and maybe to catch a glimpse of Squall napping.  It was no secret that all the teenybopper girls whom Garden edified started out this way.

       _Too bad for Rinoa, Selphie reflected, __many of them ended that way too._

       Lily in the meantime had strutted towards the center of the room.

       _You're not supposed to be sneaking around, Selphie thought giddily.  __Girl, you are mine!_

_       "Instructor Tilmitt?" Lily called out again.  "I saw you come in here."_

       _To Diablos with her! Selphie swore silently.  __Now I have to get up._

       It did not occur to her how embarrassing the view was of her hand, poking out between the cushions and waving frenetically in the blind hopes of catching Lily's attention, was until it was too late.  Lily tried her best not to giggle too hard before rushing over as quickly as her high heels would allow and try to pull her instructor out of the sofa.

       While Selphie was not a heavy body to lift, the unorthodox angle at which her arm breached the surface afforded little leverage for her short pupil who was even less heavy and whose fingers were much more dainty.  Selphie took the opportunity to squeeze those detestably smooth, virgin hands with her own weapon-broken, callused ones.

       While no more than half of her intent was geared towards pulling the squeamish girl into the same ridiculous position she was in, the frivolous tug caught Lily while she least expected it.  The girl teetered unstably for a split-second before falling into the snare.  This strange development surprised Selphie more than it did her victim because the last thing she needed today besides a visit from Ultimecia was Lily Furgle's face on her chest.  Granted it wasn't there long because the poor girl immediately began to struggle and scream, Selphie's anxieties did not diminish, due largely to how quickly Lily's painted fingernails found her face and how deep the girl's high heels were digging into her thigh.  

       For once Selphie was glad to have been wearing the plastic construction uniform, which dulled the points of the heel sand distributed the force of the thrusts over a larger area.  With the mini-skirt on, Selphie's leg would have had no such protection and the unpleasant gash that would have no doubt resulted from the shoe to skin interface would haunt her as a permanent stigma of her ineptitude.  

_       Nothing like a flesh wound to remind you of your follies, Selphie contemplated bitterly._

       It was obvious that Selphie's well-being was not one of Ms. Furgle's priorities.  She was frantically pushing her instructor down in order to propel herself up.  Had they been in the water, it would not have been a pretty sight, assuming that it was pretty at the moment.

       _What are thinking? she corrected herself.  __Pretty?  If we were in the water, this would be murder! _

_       The girl continued to push Selphie deeper into the sofa._

       _Ingrate!  Selphie fumed.  __Where is your sense of duty?_

       She was only fooling herself though; it's not like her first reaction in a life-threatening situation would be to sacrifice herself for the salvation of a superior officer.

       Ironically teaching the differential equations class with Lily in the front row asking questions off of a list was what had exhausted Selphie so much that she decided to flop down on the couch in the first place.  Now they were together in this mess, she and her least favorite student.  It would not be inaccurate to describe Selphie as being weighed down by the largest grievance of her day, in both the literal and figurative sense.

       The girl refused to listen to her commands, drowning out Selphie's shouts with her own screams as she continued to flounder around.  _Those high heels are really beginning to hurt_.

       Lily was lucky enough to break the surface and pull herself out before Selphie took the liberty of breaking her ankles.  With one final shove with the foot, much to Selphie's consternation, Lily was out and scrambling for the door.  

       Before she could make it out of the door, Selphie managed to vocalize a threat to lower her grade in the class.  When she heard the skidding sound of Lily's high heels against the floor, she knew the ruse had worked.  The girl pulled off a tight revolution in one smooth motion to face Selphie and chirped indignantly, "Hey!  You can't do that!"

       "Why not?" Selphie countered.

       "The instructor's code doesn't give you that privilege!" Lily argued, making an effort to jump up and down to emphasize her point.

       _And how would you know that? Selphie thought with a frown.  __Actually I can't fail you because we need you father's donation to pay for all the materials for the new Headmistress's quarters._

       "How about out of the goodness of your heart, then?" Selphie posed.

       Lily seemed to consider it semi-seriously before replying, "Nah."

       Selphie rolled her eyes.  _My whole life, as I know it, has been dismissed by one syllable._

       "I'll give you extra credit," Selphie sweetened the deal.  _And I won't rip your heart out_.

       "I don't need the extra credit," Lily responded politely.

       _How about your heart?  Do you need that? Selphie thought in a rage._

       Instead of saying what she wanted to say, she deferred to the plea, "What do you want, then?"

       Lily, obviously expecting her instructor to hand her the carte blanche, blurted out almost immediately, "A one-on-one session with Commander Squall!" 

       Selphie had seen that coming, but lifted her eyebrow simply because the girl was audacious enough to say it.  _Not a chance, sweetheart; the other girls would tear you apart the moment they found out._

       "You don't want anything else?" Selphie asked on the slim chance that Lily was being facetious just to distress her.

       "Nah," was the same, terribly annoying reply she got.

       "That's impossible, even for me," Selphie said honestly.  "A kiss is the best I can do."

       "Not good enough," Lily pouted.

       "Take it or leave it," Selphie pronounced flatly.  _Just don't leave ME!_

       Lily flipped her smooth, excessively-washed hair over her shoulders as she was accustomed to do while she thought.

       _Selphie was praying in the name of every GF that Lily had been purposely over-bargaining._

       "Fine," Lily decided after another moment of excruciating silence, "what do you want me to do?"

       "Help me out of here," Selphie said at a speed where there would be no way a listener could mistake her words or misconstrue their meaning as a whole.

       "I'm not strong enough to do it by myself," Lily whined lazily, "so should I go find some help?"

       Selphie's answer was immediate: "That would be no, hun."  _Trying to embarrass me in front of other people, are you?  Well, I won't give you the satisfaction!_

       "Grab my nunchakus from the desk and hand me on end," Selphie suggested instead.

       "Hand you your what?" Lily asked, not sure what language her teacher was using.  "That's not a dirty word, is it?"

       "Goddammit no!" Selphie shouted, flailing her arms miserably.  "My 'Strange Vision.'"

       When the girl did not move, Selphie clarified, "Those two long sticks that are chained together lying on the table."  _Is there anyone home upstairs?  
       After walking to the table and fiddling with the "It looks too heavy for me_

       _Shiftless little waif!  Selphie reflected savagely.  _How much did your father promise us?__

       Somehow, Lily Furgle managed to lift the weapon.  From the clumsy knocking noises she heard, Selphie assumed her student had picked up at least one end of the weapon.

       "Good girl, now hand me one end and tug with all your might on the other," Selphie directed.

       "But it's heavy!" complained Lily, and rather disturbingly a sniffle followed, as if she was close to tears.

       _She is probably blistering her hand, Selphie guessed with some degree of scorn, _but I guess the Adamantine in the "Strange Vision" can be a little trying for one who has never handled anything heavier than her comb.__

       After much shuffling, one of the sticks finally found its way to Selphie's outstretched hand.

       _Wahoo! Selphie rejoiced.  _It's about time!__

_       "Now tug on the other end as hard as you can," Selphie instructed._

       There was no tug from the other end.

       "Lily?" Selphie called out.  _Come on!  Let's get this show on the road!_

       "So I get a kiss from Commander Squall for saving you?" Lily questioned dubiously.

       "Yes," Selphie assured her with some amount of exasperation.  _Let's go, let's go!_

       "Where will he kiss me?" asked Lily curiously.

       Selphie was on the verge of breathing fire.  _Covetous little punk!_

       "Do you want me to get out and show you?" Selphie snapped caustically.

       "I just wanted to know," replied Lily with a quivering voice.

       "Our original deal was that you would get to kiss him," Selphie clarified.  "I said nothing about Squall kissing you."

       "Why do I need you then?" Lily asked.

       _Just wait till I get out of here, Selphie thought, saying at the same time, "I'll hold him still so you can pull it off before he can run away."_

       "You promise?" Lily asked.

       "Mercenary's Honor," Selphie swore, perfectly aware that she was using a standard term in the SeeD manual of operations that allowed the beholden to wheedle her way out of 412 possible predicaments without perjuring herself.  If her memory did not fail her, a promise made under duress to ameliorate the plight of the enunciator was situation 65.

       Lily snorted in a very unladylike way.

       "No deal," she said, "because you'll just cop out using clause 65 as cover."

       _To Diablos with you! Selphie cursed.  __Oh well, Squall will forgive me._

       "Not sure if Rinoa will though," she added just softly enough to escape the attention of her subordinate.

       More loudly she conceded, "Fine, Lily, if I renege, you can kiss Irvine _and Zell."_

       Lily found herself in a highly delectable situation and began tugging on her end of Selphie's "Strange Vision" with all the force she could summon from her delicate, first-class limbs.

       Little by little, Selphie's arms and construction uniform materialized from the sofa which wasn't giving up without a fight.  Lily redoubled her efforts and abruptly Selphie popped out of her snare and landed on the cold Garden floor.

       Lily, who had managed to catch herself and forgo the fall, did not move to help her up.

       _Figures, Selphie said to herself before turning her attention to her newly acquired bruises._

       Her knee had met the ground awkwardly and she rubbed it gingerly.  All the while, Lily had not budged.

       _Well, it's obvious that she's not going to offer me a hand, Selphie concluded, _but the fact that she hasn't walked away is sure evidence that she still wants something_._

       "What is it now, Lily?" Selphie asked, trying to pick herself up.  It was a difficult task because she had not moved her legs since the sofa engorged her.

       "I actually came in here to ask about a differentials problem in the homework you assigned," Lily notified her.

       _You've started next week's assignment already? Selphie gaped and rolled her eyes almost instantly.  _I don't even remember from which textbook it was assigned.  Loser_._

       Lily smiled proudly and out of nowhere pulled out some notes and a pencil.

       _Oh great, Selphie thought, __a chance to revisit today's fifty-minute session of stump your teacher because you think it's fun._

       "What is it?" Selphie dared to ask.  _Go ahead, give me your best shot._

       "Problem 34," her student read from her paper, "Chocoboy has lost his GF Carbuncle and cannot refine his supply of elixirs into mega-elixirs-"

       Selphie chuckled, forcing Lily to pause for a second.  The word problem had humored Selphie in two ways: First, with the wording, and second, with its choice of guardian force.  Carbuncle belonged to Quistis, who probably wrote the book, and she would never in a million years lose a GF.

        _No way is our Quisty as dumb as Chocoboy!_ Selphie thought confidently.

       Frowning at the interruption, Lily coughed and then continued reading, "– so he prepares a 10-liter vat full of water.  He does not realize that this will slow the mixing process considerably, but you do because you are SeeD trainees."

       Selphie snickered again, but this time Lily ignored her and went on, "Chocoboy pours in one liter of elixir every twenty seconds.  If he stirs steadily enough to homogenize the vat's contents so it will pump out a well-mixed liter of solution at the same rate he is pouring the solute in, how long will he have to mix before he starts to produce mega-elixirs?  Hint: 10 well-mixed parts of elixir is equivalent to 1 part mega-elixir."

       Lily looked up from the page as she finished, catching the exact moment when Selphie's eyes lit up at the realization that it was a mixed rate problem.  It was exciting for Selphie because she actually knew how to answer it.

       Selphie was sure now that the problem had come from Quistis Trepe's Useful Differential Equation-Solving Skills To Have As a SeeD Trainee because Quistis had actually pulled her aside and showed her how to do the exact same problem while writing the book, unless of course she was plagiarizing.  Selphie had tried to get her former instructor to shorten the title, but Quistis was a die-hard attenuated textbook-title author.

       Selphie eagerly pointed out how the solution equation to problem 34 was the same as the solution of a linear, first order, non-homogeneous, differential equation as a function of time with initial conditions, and whose rate of change set equal to one liter of elixir divided by the total volume of the vat minus the total percentage of elixir concurrently exiting the vat.  Clapping her hands together as if to dust off any moss that had gathered there during her professional explanation, Selphie beamed.

       Lily Furgle had never encountered a situation in which Selphie played the more intelligent one so she did not know how to handle her instructor's swaggering.  She decided to ask her teacher about nonlinear, nth order, piecewise-continuous, non-homogenous, differential equations.

       Selphie wisely deferred to Squall's unique knowledge of solving such problems; it was obvious that he came across it routinely during his work.  She thus tricked Lily who skipped happily out the room under the naïve pretense that Squall was the god of Laplace transformations that she needed to vanquish to evil that piecewise-continuous, differential equations posed to the entire free world.

_       How juvenile, Selphie commented dully.  Shaking her head, she sat down by the desk, finally getting the chance to check out the docket for tomorrow as dictated by her construction portfolio._

       On the first page she rediscovered the damage assessment.  It embarrassingly confirmed her original suspicions; they had indeed shipped out more tons of wreckage than tons of construction material.  The standing figures exceeded their original financial allowances, implying that Selphie could have built more than one Garden with all the resources she had already used.  It was a miracle that whoever was sponsoring the whole reconstruction had not backed out.  Selphie herself did not know the identity of the backer, but at this moment she was more troubled by hiding these numbers from Squall, onto whom she would, of course, shift the blame.  Nerve-racked, she began biting her nails.

_       I better hope Squall is too infatuated with Rinoa to notice this small, trifling detail, Selphie kidded herself.  It was growing increasingly obvious that her facetiousness wasn't fooling anybody.  She knew she was very lucky to have so gifted a cover-up committee that could juggle the misappropriated construction crew and the demolition team following their footsteps, and make her look good in the process._

       Selphie laboriously regained her composure and scanned over the next page.  Complaints of leaks and cracks in the walls of the new rooms, neither of which were good.  Her chief architectural advisor had left a note in the margin that was screaming to be heeded.  She groaned and woefully clasped her forehead.

_       I might as well just cross interior design off my list of dream professions now, Selphie counseled herself.  _Maybe they'll have something open in the landscaping department_._

       She flipped to the next sheet and smiled.  In perfect script were all of Dante's notices for her to keep in mind.  The cursive letters could best be described as bubbly-looking, which she thought was extremely cute.

       "Donny is extremely cute," she whispered to herself and mused, "What a funny little man."

       If he hadn't been recently transferred from Balamb Garden to assist her, no one would have caught the grievous mistake she made earlier that day that could have easily cost the Garden millions of Gil and the entire second and third floors.  And while there was no record in the Garden computer network of his being assigned to her under Cid's orders, she knew that the old Headmaster was looking out for her and had sent him secretly to repair the image of leadership in the Garden.

       "That or he is just keeping tabs on me and making sure I don't endanger any lives," Selphie surmised without any seriousness in her voice.

       "He could almost pass for a little boy," Selphie mused, returning to analyzing Dante, "if he weren't so serious."

_       If he's not careful, Selphie theorized,_ he'll turn into Squall!__

       At the thought, Selphie laughed so hard that she almost fell out of her chair.  She found it quite hilarious and had to make an extra effort to exercise some maturity and return to her reading like a exemplary forewoman.

       She turned her attention to the news sheet.  She didn't bother to any of the articles she thought were lemons, focusing instead on the calendar of upcoming events.  Nothing really important was scheduled within the next two weeks.  Selphie dreaded the repetitively unproductive inter-Garden conferences and the equally tedious attendance of regular intra-Garden workshops.  The only thing that caught her eye was the upcoming masked ball.  Well-advertised and hyped up, the huge dance promised to be quite a thriller.  Selphie's lips curled unnaturally, revealing a smirk as she saw the theme of the ball: The Lunar Cry.  There would be more than a few sorceresses or Rinoa simulacrums at this big costume party, of this much she was sure.

       Selphie read over the section more carefully out of curiosity and discovered that there was also a short segment set aside during the dance for a break-dancing battle.  Her face lit up, remembering that this was the perfect opportunity for her to extract some new moves from Squall, who had always been reluctant at the orphanage to show her any techniques or tricks.  Even though he hardly ever revealed it, the Commander was holding a pair of aces over kings between the ballroom dance steps that Quistis had taught him and his own street hop.

       Just as she was finishing up the article and about to dismiss the rest of the newssheet as unnewsworthy, by chance her eyes ran by what looked like an amusing photograph.  Raising her eyebrows, she took the time to inspect the item at greater length.  It did not cease to disappoint her sense of humor, not that she expected an image with the caption "Semi-tame Goat Terrorizes Quad, Injures 3" would have.

       Even though it was not a cleanly-taken picture and could have easily been taken for a photographer's spoof, Selphie tried to make out the images anyway.  The quadruped certainly did resemble a goat, but she had never known a wild goat to wander into a densely human-populated Garden nor had she seen any goats being secretly raised in the dorms.  According to the report, authorities had not been able to arrive at the scene in time to apprehend the animal, which the amused students had been peacefully feeding for awhile before it decided to charge a few of them with its horns.  It seemed clear to Selphie that it had been fed by hand before, but she could not place a finger on what provoked its aggression.

_       Still, she reminded herself, __there could have been a million things that excited the animal.  Overcrowding, being cornered, a loud voice, an offending touch-_

       Selphie stopped herself, realizing, _These all seem to indicate that it was not domesticated at all._

       Blindly searching for the cause was becoming too confusing and too hypothetical for Selphie to delve into any further and because of this, she lost interest in it the instant after.

_       What else is there now? Selphie wondered in a completely disinterested mood.  She leaned back in her seat to stretch and yawn before restoring her elbows to their place on the table where the resulting position of her palms could provide the best cushioning arrangement on which to rest her chin as she tried to finish off the remaining announcements.  She was determined to peruse all the officer reports while expending as little energy as possible; her energy was in short supply and she needed to save it for dreaming good Selphie-dreams._

       Selphie was convinced that she would dream better if she wasn't completely pooped out when she fell asleep; the better the condition of the person, the better the quality of dreams.  Irvine had laughed at the notion when she mentioned it absent-mindedly once.  He also woke up the next morning in the infirmary with a black eye, an end which Selphie felt justified in having effected.

       The recollection of Irvine's overnight hospitalization was uncannily well-timed because his name appeared in the security chief's report, the recognition of which brought all eight of Selphie's cylinders to a clunking halt.  Her eyes widened and for a moment she felt light-headed.

       "I-Irvine is back!" she stammered, almost not believing it.

       Kicking back into action, Selphie's mind added spitefully, _And he hasn't come by to see me yet? _

       The report, which Selphie had picked up in her left hand upon seeing his name, was now somewhat crumpled, her hand having tightened at the thought of Irvine purposely avoiding her, possibly philandering in the girl's locker room.   Meanwhile, her right hand had reached instinctively for her nunchakus.  She could imagine Irvine's smirking face and the perfect spot in between his eyes where she could reintroduce her "Strange Vision."

       She looked back down at the paper, hoping to find out what he had been up to.  While she smoothed it out and set it flat on the table, she swore reprisal if it turned out that he had been involved in any episode that warranted a suspicion of his womanizing.

       "Irvine Kinneas stripped of all Nova Trabia Garden basketball court privileges and sentenced to all due compensation for damages and injuries," Selphie read from the sheet.

_       Holy Shiva, Selphie murmured.  __Unbelievable._

       Her right hand, which still gripped the "Strange Vision," seemed to speak, "You got off easy this time, cowboy, but just you wait."

       Selphie checked the rest of the report out and whistled.  Not only had Irvine's court privileges been revoked because he summoned Jumbo Cactuar and Tonberry King and thus violated the new rule that banned GFs from the court, but he was sure to be in serious debt from the looks of the extensive damages the two GFs inflicted on the court, equipment, baskets, backboards, surrounding buildings, and any of the players unfortunate enough to have been playing in his line of sight.  There was no estimation of the aggregate cost of reparations listed.

       Apparently Jumbo Cactuar had popped out of the ground, breaking the concrete floor of the court and sending the huge blocks in all directions.  The mustached GF proceeded to spring into the air and fire a thousand needles randomly into the surroundings.  Some needles ended up decorating the backboards and walls of the court, but others found their way to the flesh of innocent bystanders and to the skins of all the basketballs in the area.  In total, he had sent forty-odd persons to the infirmary and popped eighteen basketballs.  There was no way Dr. Kadowaki could have been pleased.

       Tonberry King had also opened up a whole in the floor of the court, climbed out, waddled over to the only backboard that remained standing after Jumbo Cactuar's "1000 Needles" attack, and chopped it in half with his chef's knife.  Having satisfied themselves, the two GFs both nodded in harmony and disappeared.  They had reduced that part of the sports center to rubble.

       Selphie assumed that Zell had been at the scene with Irvine and had somehow provoked his partner into coming up with so hair-brained an idea.

_       Knowing those two, Selphie extrapolated from the text with the help of a little intuition, __they probably scrambled over the fence like jackrabbits to escape the needles the moment they realized that Jumbo Cactuar was counting down to his attack._

       It was not a question of who identified the danger first, but why in the world neither one of them chose to knock the GF out during its post-summoning prep time for activation.  Even so, it was likely that Zell had gotten off without a punishment since his name was not mentioned, and even Irvine was released from custody after only an hour and a half of detention.

_       So he still had plenty of time to visit me at the construction site today, Selphie reasoned, __even after he decided to go ahead and play basketball without dropping by and saying hello first._

       Unnecessary was the reiteration of the sad truth that he hadn't.

       Feeling a storm of passion rising within her, she tried to single out each element of the emotional tornado but found it difficult to differentiate between anger, worry, and amusement.  No longer comfortable with just sitting in the lounge by herself and reading when she was really just itching to find Irvine, Selphie flipped through the rest of the officer reports in a haphazard manner fashion, catching only fragments of sentences or those printed in bold lettering.  These she paraphrased and read aloud for no other reason than to provide some basis for her to say later that she had read them, even if she wasn't really paying any attention to the words:

       "Ranger reports observable increase in aggression of creatures in the forest; something making them rowdy; cases and complaints of theft continuing to rise steeply; Quistis Trepe and Disciplinary Committee have identified the culprit allegedly responsible for all the thefts-"

       She lifted her eyebrows here, impressed by their blatant overestimation of a single man's ability to menace the entire society of that Garden, but continued absent-mindedly:

       "Selphie nominated to arbitrate two cases tomorrow; case one with McChocobo's restaurant franchise litigated by customer who burnt her tongue on some coffee-"

       Selphie chuckled at the frivolous plaintiff, ready to dismiss the case right there and arrange for the eatery to counter-sue.

_       People these days, she said to herself with incredulity, _will make up anything for Gil.__

       She continued, "Second case involves car company General Feathers being sued by a foreign customer whom the company had the local constables arrest because she was being rowdy when in reality she was only trying to ask about a problem with a car that they had sold her earlier-"

       Selphie scoffed and made a mental note to herself that the car company was not to win this case, which was a clear instance of tribal discrimination due to a language barrier.

       She flipped to the last report, reading, "Chairman of construction on medical leave; blue Malboro cigarettes; Dante to assume position; the end!"

       She had secretly congratulated Dante when she read that, but was so relieved to get the summaries out of the way that she didn't stop to cheer for him in mid-sentence.  Clearing the clutter of papers that she had tossed all over the desk while she going through them was all that remained between her and her quest to crucify Irvine.  Shoving them all messily into her briefcase was no problem for Selphie.

       All of this was done in a single breath, and in her second she had already grabbed all her belongings and was heading for the door when she remembered that she was still in her scratchy, plastic, forewoman's uniform.

       _Did I wear this throughout the differential equations class? she wondered in horror._

       She had.

       "No wonder all my students were laughing at me today," Selphie groaned.

       _Well, Doomtrain take them all! she cursed, realizing that it was too late to change anything._

       _At least I still have my skirt in the briefcase, she comforted herself, _which I should probably put on now if I don't want anyone I know to see me in this disgusting, clashing, retro jump suit!__

       The fact that it smelled as bad as it looked expedited her decision to and act of taking it off.  Selphie did not see changing in the lounge as that big of a problem, especially since the officer's lounge was one of the most infrequently used rooms in the compound A, and quite possibly the least used room in Nova Trabia Garden.

       As she unzipped her jumpsuit, under which she had nothing to cover her, she assuaged her lingering doubts, figuring that since she hadn't seen any of the officers all day, it was highly unlikely that they would walk in on her while she was changing now.  

       As Selphie reached inside her briefcase for her orange skirt, she added mentally, _Irvine and Zell especially, since they had been avoiding her all day-_

       Her thought was interrupted by the hissing sound of the opening door.

       _Holy Shiva!_

       In that second of alarm Selphie was frozen stiff, vacillating between diving behind the sofa or quickly slipping the rest of her skirt on.  In that moment of indecision, a dark, curved, boomerang-like projectile zipped through the air and caught her in the head.  Selphie clasped her head that was throbbing in pain, and fell over behind the couch.  The unfastened skirt fell to her ankles.

       Later she would be able to replay the sequence of events back to herself and describe the color of the boomerang as more of a purple, but whose edges varied a good deal from black to pearl.  She would even realize that it was a blade-like horn, not a boomerang.  At the present, however, Selphie was too dizzy to see straight, and indecent besides, but decided to stand up and retaliate.

       All her senses of perception were going nuts but she could make out two distinct voices in the haze and a figure   She paled when she realized that the voices belonged to Irvine and Zell.  She quickly reached for her skirt with one hand and her nunchakus with the other.  Three images of Irvine appeared to run through the door in her direction.  She tried to clear her head and focus on just one of the images, but her perception did not improve.

       It was obvious that he had come in to retrieve the boomerang, or rather what they had been using as a boomerang.  Whether he was chasing it because he threw it or Zell threw it was irrelevant to her.  Among the few other things that Selphie was able to discern were the cheap water-gun in Irvine's hand, how he was firing the water-gun at some target outside of the door and beyond her line of sight, how he was running forward even though his head was turned, and the shouted dialogue between Zell and himself.  It seemed like Zell was chasing Irvine in a water-gun fight and Irvine had not looked to see if anyone was in the lounge, which meant that he hadn't spied her yet.

       "Take that, Zell!" Irvine yelled confidently in mid-stride while firing another shot.  "Maybe next time you'll think twice before slandering Rinoa's mother!"

       "You couldn't hit me even if you had your Exeter," Zell taunted in return.  "This only proves that you're dead wrong about Julia because your grasp of music is as bad as your aim!"

       "You're just making up this Faye Wong character just to be difficult," Irvine shouted back, "because you know you can't win this water-gun fight!"

       "Ha!" Zell scoffed and retorted, "If you can't hit a stationary target while she's trapped behind bars, what makes you think you can hit a moving one?"

       "Very funny, Zell," Irvine hooted, dodging another spray, "but records show that the copyright for 'Eyes on Me' belongs to Julia Heartilly!  You might as well admit defeat now!"

       "You can fight all you want," Zell called to him, "but if your 800-Gil peashooter can't even find its target, how are you going to squirt me with that 2-Gil plastic toy?  Believe me, Faye Wong performed that song!"

       "Who has even heard of this Faye Wong?" Irvine gibed as he continued to run forwards.  "Just be a gentleman, Zell, and surrender to save us both some time!"

       "Being gentle is something we leave to you," Zell sneered from just beyond the door, "Mr. Crybaby-Who-Can't-Take-The-Pressure-In-Intense-Situations!"

       Selphie considered her options during this loud exchange.  She could just cover her face and run past them without putting her skirt on, and in that way preserve anonymity at the cost of displaying everything, but she realized that even if she took her "Strange Vision" and trademark orange skirt with her, there would still be telltale signs left in briefcase that would lead back to her.  That left her with no choice but to go with the only option that remained.  She considered reconsidering, but the remembrance of his not visiting her when he had every opportunity to do so hardened her soul enough to make sure that her hands would not go soft during the deed.

       After Zell's last taunt, Irvine began turning his head back around to see where he going, fully bent on throwing an insult that would level his rival, when all of the sudden everything went black and something knocked him over the head.  He collided with the blow at such a speed that he was knocked off his feet and managed to sail over some furniture before hitting the ground hard where he remained, lying face down in a crumpled heap.  Irvine groaned something incomprehensible.

       Selphie went over to his side and pulled her skirt off of his head where she had tactically tossed it a second ago.  Then she proceeded to put it on over her and tried to fasten her two breast clasps as quickly as her nimble fingers could, but she only managed to get one done before Zell appeared in the doorway.

       As soon as he saw her fiddling with her skirt, he looked away, well aware of the repercussions of doing otherwise.  At the same time he asked, "By Odin!  Selphie, what are you doing?"

       "What did it look like I was doing?" Selphie rejoined just as she finished the last clasp.  Raising her nunchakus with both hands menacingly, she demanded, "Did you see what I was doing?"

       "No, no, I didn't see anything," Zell replied honestly, "Besides, Mina would gut me alive if I did."

       Selphie shot him a "You're getting off easy this time" look.  Then she took a better look and asked, "What in Eden are you riding on?"

       With a smile that had obviously been practiced, Zell looked down at his equine animal and patted it proudly.  He then sat up straight, pointed at himself with his thumb, and yapped, "Look at me, I'm a knight, I'm a knight!  I'm the sorceress' knight!"

       Selphie was not amused, and tapped her foot to show that she was still waiting for an answer to her question and that he had better not repeat the joke for Squall.

       "Don't you see the sign?" Zell asked with a hint of condescension that forced Selphie to raise an eyebrow.  "It says 'Donkey.'"

       Selphie looked at the piece of paper taped to the dark gray, fur-covered side of the goat-like creature.  There was a word on it formed by crayoned-in letters of different colors.

       _Only these two morons, she thought, shaking her head, _would take a child's play tag seriously_.  __Besides, he read it wrong; it's upside down._

       "By the way, it says 'haxuoCl'," she informed him coldly, "not 'Donkey.'"

       Zell scowled and asked, "Why do you and Irvine use the same nonsensical word?  Am I missing something?"

       Apparently even Zell had enough wattage in his attic to figure out that he probably had overlooked something, and so he leaned over and scrutinized 

       "What do you think?" Selphie challenged him.

       Zell thought three times as long as he normally would have to make sure that he had a good response before answering, "A donkey with dark gray fur on the bottom and silvery hair on the top."

       There was a long, embarrassing pause as Selphie tried to find the right words to launch her tirade and Zell tried to maintain a look of confidence to show that he would stand by his answer to Ifrit and beyond.

       "Selphie?" Irvine murmured, still lying face down on the ground but dimly recalling that Zell had mentioned her name at some point in the past.

       "Yeah, she's here," Zell replied dryly.

       Trying to be funny, he added, "Why?  Didn't you see her?"

       Selphie gave Zell a look which smacked so unmistakably of intolerance that he silenced himself immediately.

       Irvine was by now slowly regaining his mobile skills and he moaned, "I think I ran into a pole.  Either that or a rod of some sort."

       Looking fearfully at the ends of the nunchakus that Selphie still wielded firmly, he remarked, "Well actually, Irvine, you just about hit it mark with that guess."

       Ignoring Zell's pun, intended or unintended, Selphie demanded, "Who threw the boomerang?"

       Rubbing her temple where it had struck her, she thought furiously, _If this leaves a mark, I will gut both of you!_

       "It was Zell, I swear!" Irvine confessed honestly, cowering in the corner.  _Please don't gut me, Selphie!_

_       "It was Irvine, I swear!" Zell professed at almost the exact same time and matching the same degree of truthfulness in tone.  __Please don't gut me. Selphie!_

       Unable to decide which one of them was the actual defender and ruling out the skill and coordination required of both men for them to have hurled the boomerang simultaneously, she decided that it would be best if she dealt with that issue later.

       "Where did you find 'haxuoCl'?" she went on and asked, still troubled by Zell's mount.

       "We found him a few minutes ago just outside the quad," Irvine replied.  "He was close to finishing his meal of these three rosebushes that some genius planted without protective fencing."

       _My rosebushes! Selphie cried internally, her heart skipping a beat._

       "I found him first," Zell chimed in proudly, "and the boomerang."

       The two men saw how close Selphie was to spitting fire and immediately assumed they had once again offended her with something they said.

       _All that effort put into planting them! she mourned, half-way hysterical._

       Calming herself without making a display was a great labor, and as she struggled with it, Irvine decided it was the best time to bring up a proposition that he had been saving until the right moment.  Granted this was not the best of times, he figured quite correctly this was the only chance he was going to get to fit it in their interaction.

       Clearing his throat, he began, "Hey, Zell, now that Cid has made me a SeeD, I've started to notice stuff."

       "What kind of stuff?" Zell asked.

       "Well," Irvine continued, "you know how we are paid based on the number of steps we walk during a mission?"

       Zell indicated the affirmative, not the least bit surprised at the random topic Irvine picked to mollify the tension in the air.

       "Did you ever notice that a group of three gets paid the same amount of money as one person even though they triple the number of steps taken altogether?" Irvine continued.

       Zell hadn't ever noticed that.

       "Do you know why this is?" Irvine asked him.

       Zell did not know.

       "It's because the two people that are following the leader just go over his steps," Irvine explained simply, "and there is no reason why Cid would pay the party three persons' worth of salaries for the same path of steps that one person took."

       "What's your point?" Zell asked, his interest in Irvine's ramblings fading rapidly because he found something else about 'haxuoCl' that was more amusing.

       "We should split up and walk our separate ways," Irvine elucidated.  "Even discounting Rinoa because she isn't a SeeD, we could still extort five times our current wages from Cid!"

       _Pure genius! he thought giddily.  _I'm so lucky Quistis rants and raves out all of her subconscious ideas when she gets drunk.__

       "But I thought you liked working with us," Zell prodded him with a tone that denoted that his feelings had been hurt.

       _Pure genius! Zell reflected.  _So unlike Irvine.__

       "I do, I do," Irvine reassured him, and Selphie, hurriedly, "but you have to consider social welfare!"  
       He proceeded to regurgitate verbatim for them what Quistis had said to him, "By only paying us one fifth of the amount we could have, which also translates to how much Cid is willing to pay, he is converting a lot of consumer surplus, that would be ours, into his producer surplus.  We as a society are being cheated doubly because he isn't maximizing the labor he can hire at a set wage still profitable for him to offer, thus creating massive deadweight loss."

       How Irvine was making it seem like he'd realized this all by himself and the fact that he was so right only increased Zell's suspicion that it wasn't really Irvine's idea and incited him to ask from his mount, "This sudden for propensity for Gil wouldn't by any chance have been inspired by the current 590,000-Gil debt you owe to Garden, would it?"

_       Damn!  Zell is unusually bright today! Irvine silently swore.  _And I was really counting on this scheme to pull me through this financial crisis!__

       His hopes were going down in flames.  The emotional devastation he was feeling now was so different from the thrill he got from catching up with Quistis the night of the cocktail party in Balamb Garden.  She had rebuffed his first few attempts to get cozy with her at this celebration where he thought they were supposed to let go and have a little fun, well deserved from saving the world and defeating Ultimecia.  After all, was a hug from a blonde in pink too much to ask for after enduring a return trip from Time Compression?

       He sighed, recalling the events of that hectic night.  After Selphie had chased him around the ballroom a couple of times with a fork, Cid had saved him by calling them over, conferring SeeD status on him for his services against the sorceress, and giving them their next assignments.  Basically he got stuck with Zell on some weather survey.  Afterwards, he'd figured that a breather from Selphie and the corollary chance to reacquaint himself with the Balamb Garden honeys was auspicious, and left under the pretense of looking for fresh camcorder batteries, but for some reason Rinoa had left the party early as well.  The difference between them was that she was looking for her room, running by him in tears.

       She locked herself inside and wouldn't answer his knocking.  Quistis soon followed and tried to talk to her as well, but all they could hear were sobs.  He left her coaxing Rinoa through the door and went to one of the stockrooms.  On the way he ran into the cute pigtail girl from the library.  He remembered that she was Zell's girlfriend but had forgotten her name.

       Irvine scowled and tried to recall it now.  _Was it Tina?  Gina?  Something like that, maybe Rina.  No!  Mina!  That's her name!_

_       Sitting on 'haxuoCl,' Zell wondered what in Eden had Irvine to smile about.  _Doesn't he realize that Selphie is preparing to whack him with her nunchakus?__

       Unfortunately for Irvine, he was too engrossed in recreating his own history to be aware of the real world and its real dangers.

       So Mina was her name and he had run into her as she was leaving the Garden.  He was surprised then because he had seen her leave relatively earlier than had he; out of the corner of his eye the second time around the ballroom with Selphie in pursuit he had spied her making a quiet exit.  He doubted that Zell had even noticed her leave.

       Obviously she had lingered, but by now had made up her mind to just go.  Still, she recognized him _and remembered his name, so they made some friendly chit-chat.  He told her that he was on a quest batteries and she told him that she was looking for a photograph that she had dropped.  It wasn't that important so she was leaving for Galbadia without it.  Irvine wasn't really listening at the time and so he didn't comment.  She too had nothing left to say.  During this awkward silence it became quite clear that neither of them would have engaged in the conversation had it not been for propriety, it was agreed upon to postpone the discourse for a more opportune time._

       He continued on his way and found another storage room by the ballroom entrance.  While rummaging through some boxes of electronic peripherals and hoping that some cute girl would find her way to that closet and lock them both inside, Zell had run by, skidded to a stop when he saw Irvine, backed up, and asked if he knew where Mina had gone.  Irvine purposely said that she had gone to the restroom and that he had nothing to worry about because she wasn't going anywhere.  After hearing that, Zell had sped down the hall even more speedily, just as Squall stepped out into the corridor from the ballroom exit.

       Squall hadn't noticed Irvine but walked straight past him and to the radio control room.  He had muttered sarcastically, "A message from him?  This ought to be good."

       The moment Squall disappeared into the room, Quistis rounded the corner at the far end of the corridor and began walking in Irvine's direction.  It did not seem to him at the time that she noticed the sound of Squall shutting the door behind him, she being visibly distraught for her own reasons.  He heard her mutter, "Now I have no chance," and assumed that she was upset because Rinoa had refused to open the door and show Quistis her doll collection, or whatever girls happened to fancy.

       He had followed her back to the party and watched her down multiple shots of vodka before stopping her.  Her red face, alcohol-reeking breath, garrulity and boisterousness all indicated that she had had enough to drink for one night, if not longer.  So he sat her down and took advantage of her verbosity, picking up her ingenious idea which he had hoped to cash in himself.  She had been raving other suggestions and ideas that she would never have vocalized or acted upon had she been less inebriated.  How happy he had been!

       Irvine's revisitation of that glorious night was interrupted by a knock from Selphie's "Strange Vision."  The blow to the head left a ringing sound in his ears, causing his eyes to vibrate in the process.

       Zell whistled and smirked.  _He should have seen her coming._

       Selphie was still furious and took the time to deflate Zell's invisible bubble of happiness.

       "By the way," she informed him maliciously, "that's not a donkey that you're sitting on."

       Zell purposely made no reply, intent on showing her that she couldn't disturb him or his bubble if he was determined not to be disturbed.

       "I figured it out while Irvine was trying to sell his idea, which, by the way, was founded on skewed economic principles," Selphie continued.

       Zell made sure that his personal bubble of happiness was still intact, even though he was curious what she was getting at.

       Selphie knew she had him and moved in for the kill.

       "I didn't recognize it aft first because I've always seen them with their horns," she said.  "That purple thing you were using as a boomerang was the horn."

       Zell was beginning to sweat.  He looked around frantically to make sure his bubble was still there.

       _And now for the checkmate, she thought with a blend confidence with malice.  __Yes, I will break you._

       "You're sitting on a Mesmerize."

       Its identity revealed, the monster bucked its rider off and galloped out of the room and down the hall.  It happened so quickly that Zell didn't have the time to be frightened.  Luckily for him, though, he landed right on top of Irvine, who, while attempting to rise to his feet from the place where Selphie had put him, indeliberately managed to position himself right where he could break his partner's fall.

       Selphie watched as 'haxuoCl' the Mesmerize made his getaway, painfully aware that they would have to go hunt it down later.  Briefly she wondered how a Mesmerize could have found its way into Nova Trabia Garden; while nomadic tribes of Mesmerizes would occasionally migrate through the Bika Snowfield, they were most abundant in the plains of Esthar.

       _How did this one get all the way out here by itself? she pondered._

       Irvine moaned weakly as Zell wondered why he had hardly felt anything during what should have been a nasty fall.  Selphie was not about to let Irvine get away that easily, though.

       "Could you be more selfish?" she chastised him as she forced him to his feet.

       "_This is for coming up with that proposal to separate us for money," she said as she belted him in the stomach._

       She struck him so hard that Zell, who was just observing the penalty, whimpered.  There was no dispute that his bubble of happiness had been popped.

       "_This is for leaving for two weeks without calling," Selphie justified herself as she threw an elbow across his jaw._

       It connected soundly, inciting Zell to wince.  Irvine, meanwhile, was writhing in pain and shivering in fear.

       "And _this_ is for not coming by to see me earlier," Selphie elucidated, concluding the punishment with a devastating slap to his face that knocked him off his feet and onto the table.

       While she was doling out the blows, Zell had somehow grabbed a pillow and was now trying to hide behind it.  Irvine, on the other hand, was paralyzed.

       Selphie's glower unexplainably melted into a sorrowful frown and she raced over to him with a cry.  He cringed, fearing another onslaught, but she only wept and her hands over his face to see if he was okay, much to the amazement of both men.

       Just when Irvine thought it was safe lower his guard, though, Selphie suddenly scowled, wiped away the tears, and slapped him again.  No sooner did Zell hear the loud slap was Selphie bawling and kissing Irvine again.

       She suddenly realized what she was doing again, pushed him away from her and off of the table, and then ran out of officers' lounge covering her face with her hands and crying uncontrollably.

_       That was new, Zell confessed to himself as he came out from behind his pillow-shield._

       Irvine slowly rose to his feet, rubbing his stomach and then checked his jaw.

       "Your nose is bleeding," Zell notified his companion.

       The look he got from Irvine communicated, "As if I couldn't feel that."

       Walking over to Zell, Irvine held up his hands questioningly and asked, "So was that good or bad?"

       Zell looked at Irvine and made a face before walking over and slapping him.  Irvine misread Zell's parody of Selphie and tackled his assailant with a battle cry.

       Outside in the hall, Selphie was crying so hard that she couldn't see where she was going.  She bumped into Quistis, who was also red-faced and shaking.  They exchanged surprised looks before Selphie moved closer to hug Quistis and then rested her cheek on Quistis' shoulder where she continued to sob.

       "Irvine?" Quistis spoke first, guessing the instigator of Selphie's ocular deluge.

       Selphie nodded, nuzzling her face deeper into Quistis' shoulder, soaking that part of the white shirt.

_       Quistis in a white shirt?  Selphie marveled. __No way!_

       "There, there, now," Quistis comforted Selphie and stroked her back soothingly.  "Boys will be boys."

       Selphie eventually regained her composure and asked between sniffles, "Why are you so red?"

       "It was nothing," Quistis replied though her face reddened.  "Some administrative stuff, that's all."

       In Selphie's opinion, Quistis' body was extremely warm while her clothes were somewhat cold and damp.

       "Did you go outside of the Garden to the Trabia fields just now?" she asked her colleague.

       "Yes, I did," Quistis admitted, not wanting to think about it.

       Selphie couldn't guess what possible administrative duties Quistis had to execute outdoors that could get her so heated up.  

       "On the way here a black and silver goat-thing ran past me," Quistis brought up hastily, changing the subject.

       Selphie looked straight into Quistis' eyes and said, "Zell."

       Quistis nodded, understanding perfectly.

       "I won't ask," she replied.

       They walked back to officer's lounge and peered inside.  Zell and Irvine were wrestling on the ground, each striving for the upper hand.

       _Whoa! Quistis thought, blushing slightly.  __That's pretty risqué._

       "Whoa!" Selphie cried.  "You two getting to know each other?"

       Irvine was about to shout a reply when Zell freed his hand from Irvine's hold and tried to cuff him.  Irvine dodged and they ended up rolling on the ground, cursing each other.

       "I think they need some alone time together," Quistis told Selphie purposely loud so that the two men might hear her.

       "Yes," Selphie agreed in good humor, "it's cute and all but we'd better leave them alone."

       "Play nice, kiddies," Quistis called to them before the two women turned to leave, in the process of which Selphie made an attempt to wave good-bye.

       That got Irvine's attention and he pushed Zell away.

       "I'm going to find 'haxuoCl'," Irvine used as an excuse to quit the fight and chase the two females.

       "Keep going until you smell it," Zell advised Irvine with a trace of disdain.

       "Not a problem," Irvine shot back, "I'll just follow the scent you left on him."

       He raced off before Zell could get in another word.

       Zell jumped to his feet and ran after him, but stopped at the door; Irvine had already reached the ladies who were walking side-by-side and proceeded to put one arm around each of them.  Even though both ladies immediately threw his arms of their waists, there was something about Irvine's rampant womanizing that bothered Zell.  It might have been how comfortable Irvine was with flirting.

       Zell took out the photograph of Mina and the stranger without really knowing why.  They looked really close, and way too close for Zell not to worry.

       Zell's thoughts shifted back to Irvine, the busy bee that visited one flower after the next, as if they were all the same to him and one wasn't enough.

       He felt disgusted and wondered, _How does he do it?_

       He sighed and, looking back at the photograph of Mina, asked aloud, "How _could she do it?"_

       It was all too confusing and heart-wrenching for Zell to think about.  He wanted an explanation.  He wanted a piece of that guy in the picture.  He wanted to ripe him to shreds.  He wanted to-

       Zell took his last thought to the wall, not entirely aware of what he was doing.  His fist broke though an inch of the concrete and sent cracks running out radially from the smashed epicenter.

       He gulped, scared by the sight of mutilated wall that he affected in his rage.

       _Better get out of here before Squall sees it, Zell told himself._

       He ran out of the room and headed for the Chinese eatery by the entrance of Nova Trabia Garden.  Just outside the lounge he was tripped up by a really short Garden student whom he assumed was a child.

       Zell pushed past him rudely and callously shouted, "Outta my way, punk!"

       He did not know that this one action of his would cost him the world.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	17. Setting 14: 2059 DAY 15, Archaeological ...

Setting 14: 2059 DAY 15, Archaeological Excavation Site on the Outskirts of Nova Trabia 

_"A man is not finished when he's defeated; he's finished when he quits."  
  
_

-Nixon, Richard__

       _"O_utta my way, punk!"

       Raijin knew that voice.  He knew it through the entire duration of his fall.  It was Seifer, his best buddy.

       During their camaraderie Raijin had discovered, or assumed rather, that whenever Seifer called him a "punk," he meant it in an endearing way.  The only way Raijin could rationalize and endure the actions of his leader, guide, and trusted friend towards him was to think of them as Seifer's means of showing concern and affection.  How Seifer had just shoved him to the floor, then, must have meant that he had cared an awful lot.  It was obviously prompted by some external threat, and in order preclude it from menacing Raijin, Seifer had moved in front of Raijin to face it.  Pushing his friend altruistically away from harm, willingly stepping in between Raijin and the danger, and sacrificing himself to save his comrade from the assailant all spoke much of Seifer's lofty principles and character.  Raijin looked up from his place in the dust, fully anticipating Seifer in his fighting stance, sword drawn and moving to strike the awful, awful Hexadragon.

       Seifer Almasy calmly strolled by with a toothpick sticking out of the corner of his mouth, humming a few light notes from the moogle song.  Fuujin, expressionless as always, was right behind him, carrying a Tonberry lamp to light the way.  Neither saw how the look of disappointment in Raijin's eyes.  Suddenly, Raijin smiled and picked himself up.

       He had figured it out and he was very clever for having done so.  It was obvious that Fuujin had meant to kick him to the floor or bash his head in with a rock.  _That_ was why Seifer had shoved him, not because he just felt like putting his colleague down.

       _No, Raijin reasoned, __that would be too obvious, and Seifer is too clever for that._

       Raijin knew better than to question Seifer's actions.  While his motives and decisions were suspect at times, after a deed was done, there was little use in arguing with Seifer about whether or not to do it.  If he had decided to do it, he obviously would have assessed all the risks and weighed them against the fruits of labor beforehand.

       Thus, Raijin did not need to wonder why Seifer had shoved him instead of telling Fuujin to put down the rock.  Seifer probably had his reasons, and every time Raijin forced himself to ask for them, Seifer would be vexed.  No doubt his reasons were too complex in a plan so convoluted that Raijin would not be able to understand them.  Raijin had long since come to the conclusion that Seifer was a complicated man whose mind worked at light-speed, cranking out all sorts of ingenious ideas that Raijin had no hope to fathom himself.

       Seifer's shoulders were bouncing up and down to match the beat of the moogle song that he'd really gotten into while humming.  The song gave him good dreams, he'd told Raijin once after the latter had asked.  Fuujin was pretending as if nothing had happened.

       _That Fuujin, thought Raijin, eyes narrowing on his subject, _is trouble_._

       Some day he would show her.  Yes, he would.  Someday, he would buy shin-guards, and then she couldn't kick him there with the same effectiveness.

       Raijin scrambled after Seifer and Fuujin to complete the posse.  As he did this, he was very conscious of the fact that he completed the posse, for no posse could consist of just two members.  The awareness of the necessity and significance of his role in their gang was what kept him happy.  He never thought to wonder if that was the sole reason they let him tag along.

       The moogle song was just about finished when Seifer came to a dead end in the tunnel.  He spit out his toothpick in a cavalier fashion and threw the sword he was carrying into the wall beside him where the blade remained, embedded in the hard stone.  He then took off his jacket and shirt and picked up one of the pickaxes lying around on the passage floor.  Raijin followed his example.

       Earlier last night they had made quick work of the first eighteen feet of the tunnel they were constructing.  By day they shoveled and they hauled it out and dispersed the debris by night.  After getting his parole officer to transfer him from the fishing industry to the religious excavation program, Seifer had cajoled the trusting missionary in whose custody they had been placed that the entire posse needed to reconcile their qualms in their spirits with the divine will and to find their place in the world.  Not a soul in the entire religious camp, set just outside Nova Trabia Town, believed otherwise.  Thus, they were locked in to this underground chamber and, without anyone the wiser, had commenced digging in the direction of Nova Trabia Garden.

       They only had to surface twice each day to be handed some sustenance before retreating back into their "hole of discovery."  Seifer would not have bothered to stop digging and reassume his attire with the jacket had it not been necessary for them to receive their daily bread before the digging could recommence.  However, the only thing they were discovering was that after eighteen feet, the walls no longer gave way to their shovels and axes like clay.  Even Raijin was capable of figuring out that their stifled progress was inauspicious to the execution of Seifer's plan.__

       Fuujin, however, lingered as the two men set to work, trying to work their way through the dense rock.  Instead, she just stared at Seifer's blade that remained partially stuck in the wall.  She walked over to it absent-mindedly and ran her fingers up and down its smooth surface.  She was surprised how clean he kept the blade when hardly a day would pass in which he didn't sully it with someone's blood.  The few times that he didn't run into any battles still somehow warranted his scrutinizing it, rubbing it with a cloth, and treating it so affectionately that it would be foolish to assume it didn't mean the world to him.

       _Why does it mean so much to him? Fuujin asked herself._

       It did not seem ordinary in anyway, but nevertheless, there had to be a story behind it.  He never told her how he acquired this Kris-style blade, so broad that Fuujin doubted if there was even a need to use the trigger part of the gun-blade.  Seifer insisted on using it though, and his timing was impeccable.  Not once had she seen his timing fail or his grip slip.  Sure enough, every time he struck his foe, an explosion of gunpowder would follow in half a heartbeat.

       She moved her fingers carefully around the edges, tracing the outline from where it was embedded in the rock to the handle extrusive handle.  It pulsated slightly and emitted a blue aura at her initial caress, and then darkened again.  Fuujin hadn't expected the sword to react to her touch, but the thought of pulling back never occurred to her.

       _Where did he get this? she wondered, trying to remember the last she saw him carrying his Hyperion.  _The Estharian authorities probably confiscated it when they captured us after the Lunatic Pandora and turned us over to the Balamb prison guards_._

       She looked at the Titanus* again, amused by the etchings of dragons on the side of the hilt.

       *The idea of Titanus, its attributes, and

           the associated GF is the concoction of

           Dark Horse (duke_macbeth@juno.com)

           in "The Redemption."

       _Seifer must have hidden this before we were apprehended, she reasoned._

       It made sense, after all; Seifer had let them take his Hyperion almost without a fight.  It seemed so unlike him at the time to let some random constable, almost unworthy of holding his treasured Hyperion, deprive him of its company.  How he endured that third-rate petty case of patrol officer's clumsy handling of his weapon had astonished both her and Raijin, but now she knew why Seifer had just smirked and callously looked away.  

       The studded rubies in the hilt that made up the dragons' eyes began to glow and the blade began to shake on its own accord.  Fuujin moved away and picked up a nearby spade, realizing that Titanus was waking.  The interesting thing about the sword was that it housed a Guardian Force of the same name.  However, she had yet to see Seifer actually summon Titanus the GF during a fight because he always vanquished his opponents so quickly with the blade itself.

       _Someday, she reflected smugly, __opportunity would lend itself._

       Seifer turned as Titanus rumbled to life, marveling at how the gun-blade steadily softened until it spilled onto the floor in a puddle of metallic jelly, from which sooty vapors poured out and quickly built up an obscuring fog.  Seifer chuckled as Raijin ducked behind Fuujin.  The transformation always frightened Raijin as much as it pleased Seifer.  Fuujin, Seifer noticed, was apathetic.

       Seifer recognized the familiar sound of metal boots meeting solid ground as the GF stepped out of the mist from which he had been spawned.  A fully armored knight in a suit of ebony revealed himself.  His face remained hidden behind the dark visor.

       "What is it?" hissed the demon warrior.

       Seifer looked at Fuujin curiously and straightway interpolated what she had done to arouse the dark knight from his slumber.  Then, shifting his attention back to Titanus, he kicked a spare pickaxe off the ground, sending it spiraling dangerously towards the GF.

       Raijin gasped after acknowledging the possibility that one of the sharp ends could find a nesting place inside Titanus' chest.  Even Fuujin's eyes widened a notch at so dangerous a movement on Seifer's part.

       Both Fuujin and Raijin jumped in alarm when Titanus caught the pickaxe by the handle and sent it flying back towards Seifer.  Much to Fuujin's consternation the flying projectile reached Seifer before she could even move in his direction to help.

       Luckily for Seifer, the pickaxe flew right by him, just over his shoulder and missing his head by an inch, before lodging itself into the cavern wall behind him.  Raijin's jaw dropped a few inches.  Fuujin was stunned as well.

       _If Seifer had flinched even a bit, she realized, _that would have been the end for him_._

       Seifer, on the other hand, was aloof of the exchange and dusted his naked shoulder off.  Titanus raised his right hand, encased in a bulky gauntlet, and pointed his index finger right at his master.

       "You win this round, human," the demon growled.  "What task have you planned for me?"

       Seifer pointed at the wall behind him.

       "Get digging, we have a long way to go," he said tersely.

       Titanus did not move.  Fuujin was sure the he was scoffing behind his face-guard.

       "Like hell I am," he returned evenly.

       Seifer did not shift his gaze from the supercilious GF.

       "Get to it," he commanded, "and don't make me have to repeat it again."

       Raijin's feet were shaking so badly that Fuujin could feel herself wobbling from a foot away.  She turned and kicked him in the shin, causing him to double over with a cry.

       The dark knight either did not notice or did not care.  Clenching his ironclad fists tightly, he walked slowly towards Seifer and stopped menacingly just a few inches away from his face.  The stare-off did not last for more than a second because the GF proceeded to walk past him and pull the pickaxe out of the wall – but not before he intentionally slammed his shoulder into Seifer's in passing.  It was clear to Fuujin that a great deal of tension has passed between the two equally fierce characters.

       It didn't take a genius to figure out that Titanus was no ordinary GF.  He constantly defied Seifer and tested him.  It was as if he disdained being claimed by a mortal.  By not flinching, Seifer had won the standoff and, for the moment, won a little bit of respect from the critical GF.

       "Can I just blast it with my special attack?" the GF asked his master.

       "The last thing I need is an earthquake to bury us in this tunnel," Seifer replied, taking a place next to the GF and attacking the wall.

       Titanus grumbled something foul and returned to hacking the wall to pieces.

       Raijin picked himself up and limped towards the cart.  His job was to move the refuse away from where they were digging and towards the exit before it cluttered the workspace.  With Titanus' help, he would have to work harder to keep up with the excavating.

       Fuujin picked up the spade that she had dropped when Titanus threw the pickaxe at Seifer.  She then headed over to him and asked, "DESTINATION?"

       Seifer had told her once that her succinctness was refreshing, and it was for that reason that she limited her speech.  She personally thought that the words that comprised the rest of the sentence were peripheral and just obscured the intended message.

       Seifer wiped some sweat from his brow and took off his undershirt.  He had a folded piece of paper tucked inside his belt that he removed and handed to Fuujin.

       She unfolded it and ran her eyes over the complicated diagrams on the paper.

       "Those were copied from the Nova Trabia Garden Construction blueprints.  We only needed the plans to the ground floor."

       "SOURCE?" she asked him.

       "One of Raijin's old buddies smuggled it into the prison at my request," Seifer explained, "so at least he's good for something."

       "AUTHENTICITY?" Fuujin inquired further.

       "I think it's reliable enough to go on for now," Seifer replied and returned to his work.  Soon, he was lost in his thoughts, monotonously tearing away at the bulwark of stone that stood between him and his goal.

       His concentration was so intense that Fuujin stopped every now and then to admire his steadfastness.  She knew that he had programmed his arms to repeat the striking motion, thus liberating his mind to ponder other matters.  She wanted so badly to know what he was thinking.

       _Take that!  And that! Seifer spoke inside his head.  He found this opportunity as good as any other to exercise and build up his arm strength.  It was a pity that the wall could not fight back and parry his blows.  Still, to draw a parallel between the rock and an enemy, this unwavering opponent exhibited exceptional stamina.  He would make it a priority to be like the wall in future.  To endure and always face the opponent, to never back away from a fight, to hold his ground – all very valuable characteristics that he would do his best to emulate._

       He had to be the best.  He would not have it any other way.  He best way to accomplish that would be to take every obstacle as a lesson.  The harder it was for him to surmount it, the greater its worth to him once mastered.  His visage darkened a shade at the remembrance of the few defeats he had suffered in the course of the last few years.

       He had never become a SeeD.  How a second-rate fighter with no confidence in himself and didn't give a damn about his companions could become the Commander of the Balamb Garden SeeDs while he was denied the membership of the mercenary group was a surprise to him.  Cid overrated the role that discipline played in an elite fighting force who operated only to kill for money.  Seifer was convinced that if he were paired up with another man with his fighting skills, even if both of them disagreed on every point during the mission, they could still end the day with a victory.  On the trial run in Dollet he had managed to accomplish the mission even though puberty boy and chicken-wuss had been reluctant to follow his lead.  He did not understand Cid's decision to deny him SeeD status just because he found another way to complete the mission.

       "Your motive was right, but your method was wrong," Cid had explained to him when he demanded to know why he failed the test.

       _That blind fool, Seifer contemplated bitterly.  __Was there even a 'right' way to accomplish some of the missions that SeeDs had to carry out?_

_       Surely trying to shoot the sorceress during the parade in Deling City wasn't very noble of the SeeDs.  Cid was a hypocrite because his SeeDs had charged the sorceress Ultimecia head-on as a contingency plan.  The "right" way that Cid had been so intent on loftily imparting on Seifer would have been better demonstrated by his SeeDs had they just challenged Seifer and his sorceress to a duel.  He had beaten puberty boy in their sparring before and he was certain he could duplicate it in a real one-on-one brawl.  The fact that it was impossible for him to catch Squall apart from his comrades bolstered his estimation of Squall's inferiority to him.  One of these days he'd have a fair shot at that boy's throat._

       Seifer considered his father a great man, unlike that near-sighted Headmaster.  He was able to see past the antiquated rules of engagement that merely repressed the full potential of the individual.  Whereas Cid would rather have the entire Garden operating in harmony at half of their possible productivity, his father, General Shojora* saw the advantage of specialization.

       *Kate Lorraine (lorraine_kate@hotmail.com)

           gives the full account of Seifer's parentage

           by Shojora and Laura Almasy in "The Orphan."

If each member of the task force would do what he did best, the entire group would benefit in various ways.  It took but one man to screw up for Cid's ideal phalanx to fall.  Seifer's principle that he inherited from his father maintained that it took but one man to infiltrate the enemy defenses and capture the figurehead to defeat the entire army.  Hence, it was more fruitful to let each man go his way.  Presumably one of them would get lucky and bring victory much more quickly than if they carried everything out the "right" way.

       Predictability was the child of standardization.  Cid's agents were easily defeated because they moved as one.  Find a weakness in one soldier and the rest would fall prey to the same tactics.  Acting on impulse as his father had taught him to would keep his opponents guessing.  If the entire task force were less systematic and more individualistic, they would cover more ground in less time and confuse the pathetic fools weaned on regulation and passivity.  The waste of talent was a sad fact that Seifer did his best to resist and denounce.

       His father, while he was still alive, had scoffed at the idea of there being a "right" way to fight a war, a skirmish, or a single enemy.  "The end justifies the means," was the trite but true sophism that he had impressed upon his son, and Seifer in turn had drunken it in after questioning it only once.  He remembered it well because he hadn't been enrolled in Garden for but a couple of years before it came to pass.

       His mother Laura Almasy had raised Seifer by herself through most of his primary education.  His peers made fun of him because he took his mother's last name and never had the chance to go fishing with his old man like they did.  To make it worse, Laura decided to leave him at an orphanage because she was afraid his association with her would put him in danger.  When he didn't understand what she meant, she had to explain to him never to tell anyone that General Shojora of the Galbadian Army was his father.  Shojora had a lot of rival officers in the army itself and if they ever found out about her, she would make an excellent target for them.  It was therefore safer for Seifer to be raised apart from her.

       The day she dropped him off at Edea's orphanage was the last time he ever saw her.  When he began his training at Garden, he was informed by Cid that a deal had been worked out through some middlemen to give Seifer leave from Balamb three days each week to train in Galbadia.  Cid never figured out Seifer's relation to Shojora and as far as Seifer knew, the General never discussed it anyone but him.

       After a year and a half, Seifer had been allowed to accompany his father to Timber to apprehend the proponents of a minor resistance movement whose base of operations had been located.  It was not dishonorable in any way for the proper authorities to bribe one of the revolutionaries to reveal the whereabouts of the rebels' headquarters.  No, the dishonor rested on the turncoat who would rat on his own compatriots, and for that he had to be put to death as well.

       Shojora had asked that his young son be given the best rifle operations instructor that his army had to offer.  He was already eleven by the time his father felt that he was competent enough to go with them to Timber and suppress the feeble uprising.  All he had to do was stay out of sight and scan the area for any wildcard threats that the General's advisors did not anticipate.  The station that he ended up assuming was right outside the door of a dilapidated pub whose walls were on the verge of crumbling.

       _This is a very weak wall, he had noticed while standing outside._

       He then peeked inside the pub and surveyed the area as his father's escorts quickly rounded up the ragtag team of insurrectionists, killing one in the process.  Seifer didn't think much of it at the time since all the captives were scheduled to be shot the day after.  Shojora then turned his attention to the barmaid who was affronting him.  From the moment Seifer laid eyes on her he knew that there was something fishy about her.

       He realized that she was hiding something because there was something moving below her waist which, being behind the bar, was hidden from the sight of his father's men.  Seifer scrutinized the anomaly for a moment before making out a little boy's head.  While the whimpering boy posed no immediate threat, Seifer smelled trouble and inconspicuously raised the barrel of his rifle until it was level with the woman's chest.

       When she pulled a gun and aimed it at his father's head, Seifer's suspicions were confirmed and he pulled the trigger without delay.  He was a good shooter, sharp enough to never need to take aim because of how comfortable he was with holding a gun, perceiving depth, and measuring distances.  This unique gift of spatial awareness, for which his instructor had praised him time and time again, was the key to saving his father's life.  The woman never had a chance before he put her out of commission.  

       Later that night his father offered to give him whatever he wanted as a gift.  Seifer had been bothered by the fact that the woman had not been given a fair chance to defend herself.  He told his father that he found no glory in taking the life of an adversary who didn't cower under his weapon and call his name at the moment of death.  Shojora asked him then if he was not particularly proud of what he had done, and it was then that Seifer questioned for the first and last time the nobility in using subversion, duplicity, and craft in a fight.

       Shojora told him that history operated like a marathon.

       "It doesn't matter if you were in the lead for nine-tenths of the race, because you could still finish last and be remembered as the loser.  On the other hand, you could be dead last for most of the race, but win at the very end and be championed by everyone.  People only care about the results, not the execution," he lectured to Seifer.

       Nevertheless, for his gift, Seifer demanded to be taught to use a new weapon.  He wanted to be in the frontlines, not hiding on some rooftop so far away from the battle that he couldn't experience the thrill of danger.  Shojora asked him to be more specific as there were many single combat weapons that could achieve the end that Seifer desired.

       Prior to this occasion, Seifer had only seen a gun-blade twice.  The more recent time came about when he spied one of them gathering dust in Balamb Garden's weapon chamber but never acquired Cid's permission to use it.  The Headmaster maintained that Seifer's temperance did not befit that of one who was worthy of commanding the elegant gun-blade.  Way before that, one day at the orphanage, he had seen a man in a white coat cleave a flowerpot into four pieces while it was thrown into the air.

       Out of curiosity, wonder, and defiance to Cid's repression, Seifer asked his father to teach him true to his word, began personally instructing his son how to use the gun-blade, the only weapon in his fading recollection that was as time-honored as it was apt to be forgotten over time.  Those daily lessons were the happiest moments of his life, but they didn't last long; after three years and two weeks to the day, Shojora was killed in an ambush.  Seifer spent his entire time at Garden from then on and tried to come to terms with what he considered absolute abandonment.

       At the time he had been too young to suspect that his contemporary, President Deling, had anything to do with Shojora's death.  By the time he turned eighteen, though, Seifer had come up with a few theories of his own.  Seifer spent the entire summer with the daughter of one of the relatively new Generals who might have profited in rank by Shojora's coerced premature retirement.  Every time he was at their mansion he tried to find old files that might have been lying around in storage, but Caraway's daughter always kept within three feet of him.  As the summer drew to a close, he realized that his plan to uncover the truth and develop other leads was a massive failure.

       Seifer hated failure.  He hated to associate with failure and those who failed.  Suffering multiple defeats at the hands of Squall and his band of monkeys humbled Seifer quite a bit and introduced him to some of the toughest breaks in his life.

       Fuujin had noticed that the frequency of Seifer's strokes had increased and all his jaw muscles were taut in fury.  She assumed whatever he was thinking had managed to rile him up. Apparently he had decided to take it out on the rocky face.

       Raijin was hard-pressed to keep up removing the debris at the rate Seifer was digging.  Titanus misinterpreted Seifer's sudden burst of effort as an indication of a contest and redoubled his efforts as well.  Raijin saw immediately that there was no way he could keep up at this new pace and flopped down on the ground for a quick breather.

       When Fuujin turned to look at Raijin, he whispered to her, "Seifer has issues."

       Normally she would have kicked him but this time she couldn't deny that he was right.

       Seifer, stuck on the idea of failure, was oblivious to his posse's hiatus in labor.

       _I failed her! he chastised himself furiously.  __She was counting on me to protect her, and I let those SeeDs get right by me!  Ultimecia…_

       The notion of the sorceress brainwashing him was ludicrous.  That the Garden and even his posse would be convinced of an idea so unfounded was an insult to him.  He had gone to Timber by himself to confront President Deling and demand answers about Shojora's death.  He was less surprised by Squall's appearance than he was annoyed by the unpleasant interruption at a time when he needed privacy the most.  At the same time, he was aware of how his guise of going to protect Caraway's daughter – somehow she was with the SeeDs – was beginning to fall through.  Ultimecia appeared in time to offer him an escape route that he was doubtful at first of taking, but realizing that he could not maintain custody of Deling with any plan he might devise impromptu, buying into the sorceress' promises and following her into her portal where she could bombard him with her eerie but cheesy music seemed like his best option.

       Seifer would never forget where she took him.

       _Scratch that last thought, he corrected himself.  __It should be where she 'left' me._

       He found himself in a white room with no edges.  His movements weren't encumbered, but it was hard to see clearly what he was doing.  The rate at which his eyes would relay signals to his brain was messed up because when he waved his Hyperion in front of him, it did not seem to move back and forth smoothly; rather its motion was broken up into progressive frames that produced the same visual effects as a sloppy cartoon strip or a child's flip book.  He was beginning to worry that she had made a mistake while transporting him through the warp and that he was stranded in this white void forever when suddenly the room began to flash and the world materialized around him.

       _Scratch that, Seifer thought.  _What I meant was 'a' illusory world, not 'the' actual world_._

       It took him two seconds to realize that he was standing in the garden just outside Edea's orphanage.  It would have taken him less time to recognize the place had he not appeared right behind Squall who was facing Edea at the time and did not notice him.

       _It had to have been Squall, Seifer reassured himself.  __Who else is shorter than me by those few inches so that I could just barely make out Matron's face?_

_       Squall had fizzled out of all tangibility before Seifer could tell him to turn around and draw his weapon.  The idea of a quick victory by stabbing Squall in the back never occurred to him.  As Seifer reached out to grab Squall, the SeeD Commander had already vanished and he ended up face to face with Edea, equally surprised to see this new blonde stranger as she had been by Squall's disappearing act._

       Seifer gave himself a mental slap.  _I must have seemed like such an ignoramus with my hand outstretched and my mouth wide open like that!_

_       Edea, who was wearing in a plain gray dress, and covered her mouth with one hand and laughed at him.  He scratched his head and tried to find the right words to explain what he was doing there.  It would not have been so tough if he actually knew what time period he was taking part in.  He grimaced, realizing how inarticulate he must have seemed in her eyes._

       The good-natured Matron took the initiative and guessed, "Don't tell me.  You must be Seifer, right?"

       He nodded, not knowing what else to say.  Figuring he should at least make an attempt to reintroduce himself, he opened his mouth to speak.

       She placed a finger on his lips and hushed him.

       "Just nod if I'm right," she told him, absent-mindedly placing the pinkie of her free hand in the outer corner of her mouth.

       Seifer blinked in acknowledgement and Edea smiled.  She seemed so young, just as he remembered her in the brief time that he had called her orphanage his home.

       Edea kept her finger on his mouth but moved the other hand from her face to him arm and traced it all the way down to his hand, which he had wrapped around her waist out of reflex.  She smiled curiously at this, and, leaving her hand on his, turned slightly to see that he held his gun-blade out from behind her as if to shield her from any possible danger that might present itself while she was less vigilant.  She pondered for a moment what it meant for him to have maneuvered his arm there so that he could hold her between himself and the Hyperion.

       She finally winked at him and, cocking her head to one side, asked him, "You're a knight, am I correct?"

       He nodded, still remembering how she had told him not to speak.  He could almost taste her aromatic finger, still pressed gently upon his lips.

       "So you're here to protect me?" she posed next.

       Seifer wasn't sure how to reply.  After all, he hadn't exactly come here to save her from any threat that he knew of.  Still, if one did appear, he would never turn away from saving her; not only was Edea a damsel – knights were required by law to save damsels – but she was also his matron, which meant that he was somewhat indebted to her.

       Seifer nodded at length.  The fact that Edea Kramer was still smiling led him to believe that she did not notice his slight pause.  

       "Just be good at what you do, then," she told him, removing her finger from his lips and letting a small chuckle escape from her own.

       He was about to utter an agreement when he heard a slight bustling sound behind him.  Instinctively Seifer spun around, keeping one eye on his blade to make sure he didn't lop off Edea's arm as he turned, and keeping the other eye on the lookout for any movement.  Without realizing it, his free arm moved to catch Edea by the waist and maneuver her directly behind him as he faced the new menace.

       Seifer's usually uniform vision switched to a series of frames that refreshed themselves every microsecond.  His eyes detected a shift in depth of some object that he translated as moving moderately fast in the direction of his upper right torso.  Before his mind was able to identify the flying object, his hands had registered the proper technique he had to employ as a countermeasure.  Thus, before he knew it, he had flicked his wrist twice and disassociated the projectile into four pieces.

       It was a flowerpot that some weasel-looking blonde kid had chucked at him while his back was turned.   The soil contained within the pot exploded and hit Seifer square in the chest.  He looked down at his sullied shirt and prepared to vindicate himself by harpooning the kid with the Hyperion, but Edea stayed his hand.

       "Easy!" she cautioned him, "You _really_ don't want to do that."

       The boy, no older than six years of age, stared at Seifer in awe when he saw how quickly Seifer had clipped the pot in four with what seemed like a third eye.  How else could the man in white spin around without knowing he was there?

       "Go back into the house, Seifer," Edea told the boy who lingered a moment longer, fascinated by the gun-blade, before running past them, up the steps, and disappearing inside the dwelling.  It wasn't until Edea and Seifer saw the little boy hustle through the doorway that they became aware of an additional set of wide eyes staring at the Hyperion.  Seifer noticed a second boy, this one wearing an orange shirt, peeking out from the side of the doorframe.

       Edea waved him off before turning back to her visitor and whispered, "I think it's time for you to leave too."

       Seifer was about to protest but the Matron cut him off, interjecting, "We can't have more than one Seifer in this time and I have a lot to discuss with my husband."

       The world promptly melted around him and Seifer found himself in the desert.  The clouds above were fermented turbulently, fusing into one billow, rolling in on itself, and portending a dreadful sandstorm.

       Seifer looked around, not sure which way to go.  Then he remembered what his summer fling had told him once.  While they lay together in a hay field under a blanket of stars one night, General Caraway's daughter had remarked that the universe looked the same from whichever angle you chose to face it.

       That being the case, he set the flat side of his sword down on his shoulder so that he would only have to hold it up with his hand at an angle, and began trudging in the direction that didn't seem to be as stormy.

       He walked past several dunes before he lost count with only the comfort of knowing that he wasn't retracing his steps because he did not spy any footprints in the sand.  The only other activity he had encountered that could match the timelessness of wandering around in an artificial desert was braving Quistis Trepe's differential equations class, and even that was being rapidly promoted on the list of things that he would rather have been doing.

       _Show yourself, Utlimecia, he dared with every other step, but she did not reveal herself to him._

       After what seemed like a second lifetime, Seifer noticed that the ground had changed to a blue surface with a granite-like texture.  He turned around to make sure that the desert was still behind him but he found nothing but more blue granite and a grayish haze that swirled around the bounds of visibility.  He walked over to where the rocky floor seemed to end and saw that it was no optical allusion; he was trapped on a floating island that offered no escape.

       He turned his Hyperion downwards and jammed it into the ground and settled down beside it.  This way he could jump up and snatch the sword out by the hilt at a second's notice.  Finally finding the moment to evaluate how hopeless a situation it was in which he had found himself, he wondered how in the world it came to be that the great Seifer Almasy, in fact the very same Seifer Almasy who had always prided himself in his impeccable sense of direction, had managed to lose a great heap of sand and his sanity along with it.

       _Just perfect! he had scoffed bitterly.  __This was all I needed before my weekend!_

_       The humor in his words was there, but he was in no mood to laugh at his own sarcasm.  The sorceress had brought him here, but where had she gone?_

       "I am right here, Seifer," spoke an icy but distinctly feminine voice from no more than three feet behind where he was sitting.

       Seifer hopped up lightly and raised his blade, which he didn't even realize he had picked up in the act of scrambling to his feet, to sorceress's white neck.

       "Don't you dare move," he warned her with a triumphant grin.

       "You can't kill me," she replied coolly, "because then you'll never get out of here."

       "It's just an illusion," Seifer retorted with feigned confidence, "and it will disappear when I take you down."

       "Then take me now," the sorceress dared him, "if you're so sure."

       For the first time in his life, Seifer's hand wavered for a second.  He was more startled by this unanticipated display of indecision that he lowered his arm in shame and cursed aloud.  He was more disappointed in himself than ever, possibly because he had not thought it was possible to let distrust himself or his own abilities before it happened just then.  His entire body began to tremble, unsure how to proceed.  The identity that he had fabricated and pursued his entire life seemed to have completely shattered into shards of despair by the lightest tap of Ultimecia's fingernail.

       _She's right! he admitted to himself, __I don't have it in me to take her._

_       Frustrated by his helplessness, a feeling foreign to him that he bitterly mistook as the emptiness of incompetence, Seifer had taken two steps away from the sorceress and flung his blade far over the edge of the floating island and into oblivion.  Whether he was aware of it or not, Seifer Almasy had renounced his profession, identity, and self._

       The sorceress looked on with a trace of concern in her features.  She glided smoothly over to where Seifer was on his knees, repeatedly beating the solid rock with his quickly bloodied fists, and bent over him.  He thought enough to throw her arm off his shoulder when she placed it there, but eventually he found it pointless to resist; in this netherworld, he was at her mercy.

       "Why did you do that?" she asked him tenderly.

       "Because it doesn't matter anymore!" he shouted at her, wanting to lash out but the aspect of her eyes stopped him.

       "But why?" Ultimecia pressed on.

       "It failed me when I needed it the most," Seifer answered reluctantly, "and I don't associate with failure."

       Unspoken was the follow-up phrase, _I don't want to be a failure_.

       Ultimecia knew that _that_ was the reason why he had thrown the sword away without caring if it was redeemable or not.

       She made it easy for him.

       Putting her soft hand onto his corresponding one, she stretched out their palms and waved at the clouds.  An instant later a bright beam of golden light shot out from the gray fog, so bright that it forced Seifer to shield his eyes with his free hand.  The sorceress waved their hands as one again and from the clouds there emerged his Hyperion.  It floated slowly towards Seifer before settling at in his palm that Ultimecia continued to hold.

       Their eyes met, his in surprise and hers in satisfaction.  She leaned in closer.

       "Get away from me, witch," Seifer warned her and brushed her off, purposely ruining the moment.

       Undaunted, the sorceress rose to her feet and floated a little way off.

       "Why are you fighting _me_ when you've already given up on _yourself_?" she asked him in minor amusement.

       "You haven't beaten me yet," he replied firmly, "and it is going to stay that way."

       "Are you so sure of yourself?" she asked him, taking the opportunity to flash a devilish smile.

       "No one can defeat me except myself," Seifer repeated.

       Ultimecia smiled and licked her fingers like a feline comfortable with its spectators.  She had obviously been waiting for him to say that.

       "If I summon a creature of my choice to fight with you, man-to-man," she proposed, "would you fight him?"

       "What are the terms of this wager?" he demanded.

       "If you win," Ultimecia replied, "I'll let you live."

       "It doesn't sound like I have much to gain by this needless battle," he remarked.

       "You'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you're blade isn't a failure," she pointed out.

       Seifer was silent for awhile, pondering the implicit message, _And neither are you._

       "And if I lose?" Seifer asked.

       "Then you must give yourself to me," she said evenly, "and I will show you how to use the weapon that not even you can overcome."

       The way Ultimecia had set up the terms provided Seifer an out in case he failed to beat his opponent; he could just blame the blade and exculpate himself from the stigma of defeat.  It was an irresistible deal in which Seifer had everything to gain and nothing to lose, just as she had calculated.

       "No magic or GF attacks?" he inquired.

       Ultimecia shook her head.

       Seifer rose to his feet and grinned.

       _It's not like I have a better alternative, he assured himself._

       "I'm ready, sorceress," he informed her.

       She licked her lips and clapped her hands together in an effort to call forth her defender.

       "I summon Titanus, the Knight of the Garden," she exclaimed, and vanished into thin air as jets of dark fumes flooded the space that she had last occupied.

       Seifer shifted his balance and raised the Hyperion to his eye level.  His face remained expressionless as he heard the clatter of metallic armor ring from the dark cloud.  He inhaled sharply and pivoted just in time to avoid a slash from a sword that shot out of the cloud.

       Out from its cloak of mist charged a knight in ebony armor to meet him.  There his opponent executed a flurry of cuts that he was hard-pressed to dodge and finally resorted to removing himself from the immediate danger with a fancy back flip.  To his surprise, the knight had matched his move with a frontal flip and had already begun the motion for a quick chop to his head.  Seifer barely had time to pull the Hyperion back into position and parry the blow.

       The Knight of the Garden had accrued some additional force from his altitude and Seifer felt as much from the vibrations his adversary imparted when their blades met.  Seifer was forced to one knee while Titanus continued to press downwards.  After a tense moment, Seifer realized that he was the underdog in this tussle because the dark knight had the advantage of bearing down on his blade with his entire body and both feet under him.  Seifer could feel the granite beneath him giving way to the weight above.

       Unable to throw him off, Seifer resorted to rolling out of the way.  As expected, the Knight of the Garden's sword crashed into ground where Seifer's knee had rested a second ago, creating a massive crater that would have been decorated with his crushed body had he not moved.  Seifer's opponent gave him no reprieve however, promptly picking himself up and swinging the blade back in Seifer's direction, this time aiming to cut through his midsection.

       In response, Seifer brought his gun-blade down to meet the blow, only to find that it had been a feint to lower Seifer's sword.  As practiced as Seifer was, he could not readjust his one handed grip from that position in time to deter the opposing blade to slide beneath his and follow the edge down to the handle where he could unarm Seifer.  Seeing that he was either going to lose the Hyperion or his arm, Seifer retracted his blade early and stepped into the blow, allowing Titanus the time to close in on his hand.

       It was a daring gamble but it worked.  Right before the sword cut through his fingers, Seifer had leaned over the blades and was just close enough to the knight to knock him in the visor with his shoulder and spin out of the deadlock with all ten fingers intact.

       Titanus had not expected the bodily contact and was knocked off balance.  Still in step with his revolution, Seifer brought his sword to bear down on the Knight of the Garden's arm.  At the last minute, he readjusted the path of his sword so that it connected with the knight's headgear just as the GF moved his blade to protect his arm.  The knight saw Seifer's maneuver at the last minute and only managed to draw his head back far enough so that the Hyperion only caught the faceplate and ripped it off.

       Seifer almost dropped his weapon when he saw who he had been fencing.  The Knight of the Garden removed his helmet completely and smirked at his dumbfounded opponent.

       Seifer looked the Knight of the Garden up and down.  It was unmistakable.  It was his own face that he was staring at.

       "Impossible!" Seifer shouted, charging at the unmasked warrior.

       "Pathetic human," Titanus retorted icily, easily moving away from Seifer's blind swipe and threw his own quick series of chops aimed at different strategic striking points.  Seifer was now on the defensive, blocking the blow to his neck, moving down and intercepting one across his belly, parrying the next attempt at his right shoulder, and rolling out of the way of the final unblockable slice to his lower left ribs.

       When he came out of his roll, he noticed that his ear was bleeding.  Somehow one of the cuts had gotten by him, and he was extremely luck that Titanus hadn't taken off more than some skin and hair.  Before Seifer could raise the Hyperion to strike though, Titanus fell on him with another strategic sequence of hacks, feints, reversals, and thrusts.

       Seifer fought to get to his feet while blocking as many blows as he could.  In the end, he had to endure four gashes spread across his body.  He limped away, unsure of how to deal with his match-up.

       "You set me up, sorceress!" he shouted into the void.  "You cheated me!"

       Ultimecia's voice thundered in the sky above them, "How do you figure?"

       Seifer weakly dodged a few cheap slices and felt how sluggish his right knee had become.

       "You made me fight against myself," he accused her.

       "That wasn't against the rules," her voice sounded back as she sent a ripple of lightning racing across the cloudy sky.

       Titanus was about to lounge again when Seifer gathered enough energy in his desperation to perform his Fire Cross technique that he saved for the most dire of circumstances.  Raising his left palm, he released a jet of fire and prepared to follow it up by delivering some devastating blows from eagerly outstretched Hyperion.  It was a critical mistake on his part to assume that the fire spell would knock the knight back as it did to Squall during their sparring.  With the extra armor, the knight easily cut through the flames and brought his right arm, with the blade, under Seifer's chin.  At the same time with his left hand he caught Seifer's right wrist, trying to bring the Hyperion crashing down on his enemy's head.

       "Game over, human," the Knight of the Garden hissed at Seifer as he began to draw his blade across Seifer's neck to spill the blood nesting in the area of the throat.  

       Ultimecia recalled her GF and materialized beside Seifer just before Titanus made the cut.  She also managed to catch him in her arms as his bleeding legs gave way, no longer sensitive enough to support his weight properly.

       "You poor boy," she cooed, moving her fingers tenderly across his face.

       "How did he win?" Seifer managed to mutter before he fell to coughing up a bit of blood.

       "It wasn't that he was faster, stronger, or braver, dear child," she told him as she set his head in her lap, "but because you lacked temperance."

       She bent down and licked the side of his face clean where Titanus had clipped some of his ear.

       "Show me how to wield my new weapon properly then," he said weakly.  "Show me how to use it."

       "In time, dear boy," she hushed him, putting a finger on his lips.

       She continued after she had his complete attention, "There will be a day when you will find yourself with limited time but the freedom to go anywhere.  Find a dock somewhere and set to fishing.  I've already sent Titanus away to that fated place.  I believe that you'll catch the prize you desire."

       He was about to argue more with her when she reminded him, "You already promised yourself to protect Edea, did you not?"

       "But you're not her," Seifer replied in a half whisper.  Unconsciousness was on the verge of seizing him because of how much blood he had lost.

       Ultimecia pulled back own facial decorations and revealed the innocent face of Edea Kramer.

       Seifer's eyes widened at the realization of the truth.  He had indeed promised to keep her safe from harm, and a knight never went back on his word.

       The sorceress caressed him gently for another moment, whispering in his ear, "And now you are mine."

       The last thing he remembered before passing out was her leaning over and brushing her lips over his-

       "SEIFER!" Fuujin called to him, interrupting his thoughts and brining him squarely back into reality.

       His expression had froze entirely and, without realizing this for he had become so absorbed in his own thoughts, his arms dangled limply at his side, no longer striking the wall.  Titanus rested on his own pickaxe, gloating over his victory in what he has misconstrued as a digging contest earlier.  He had outlasted his master, and thus, his work was done.

       Seifer looked blankly at Titanus as he melted back out of existence and resumed his place as the guardian of the grand gun-blade.  Fuujin put one hand over Seifer's head to check his temperature and the other over his heart to check his pulse.  He seemed alright – very sweaty, yes – but his heart rate was stabilizing it and he showed no signs of a fever.  To her surprise, Seifer pulled her in close and lowered his forehead onto her shoulder and rested for a minute.  He was panting pretty hard.

       Eventually his breathing returned to normal and he looked up to find Raijin.  His eyes narrowed in annoyance when he found his target.

       Raijin was sitting on the ground with his back to the cart, sound asleep and snoring loudly.  He was dreaming about the time Seifer, Fuujin, and he were allowed to accompany Headmaster Cid to a charity dance in Galbadia the previous summer.  Quistis was overloaded with classes that day and Squall was moping around somewhere where he didn't want to be found, so Seifer and this posse seemed the next logical choice.

       The yellow wine cooler they served there was just as strong as Cid's if not stronger, and within three servings Raijin was had become teary-eyed and blubbering about his grievances with life and the irreconcilability of religious predestination and secular self-determinism.  Seifer had meanwhile found some chick who had introduced herself as one of the General's daughter and pleaded with Seifer to dance with her because she was extremely bored and he was the most handsome guy present.  Soon after Seifer left with the girl in the white skirt, Raijin noticed that Fuujin's eyes were reddening, but he was so intoxicated that he just assumed that her tears were also alcohol-induced.

       _Either that, he considered, __or she doesn't like wearing provocative dresses._

       Even Seifer had commented earlier that night how glamorous Fuujin looked wearing her tight, blue gown, high heels, a matching set of earrings, and very nearly baring the whole of one of her slender, silky-smooth legs.

       Spying the slumbering Raijin, Seifer and Fuujin exchanged looks.  Smirking, Seifer bent over, picked up a nearby rock and walked over in Raijin's direction.  Fuujin tried at first to hold him back, or at least suggest the alternative use of a smaller rock, but Seifer insisted that it would be more fun to wake up their colleague this way.

       Fuujin shrugged and watched as Seifer lifted the rock over Raijin's head and prepared the wake-up call.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	18. Setting 15: 2110 DAY 15, Deling City, Ca...

**Setting 15: 2110 DAY 15, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion 2F (Master Bedroom)**

_"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;_

_what is essential is invisible to the eye.  
  
_

-de Saint-Exupery, Antoine

_The Little Prince_

       _R_inoa's eyes snapped open, finding only ivory ceiling boards staring right back at her.

       _Where am I? she wondered, feeling the muscles around her stomach tighten involuntarily._

       It wasn't until she suddenly sat up that she realized that she had been lying down.

       _I'm sitting on something cushy, she determined by running her hands over the silky surface while she waited for her eyes to focus.  She must have been asleep for quite some time, judging by how sore they now felt, breaking away from their previous span of inutility._

       A few blinks did the job, and she gasped with the recognition of the ambience.  A quick check revealed that this was indeed the place with which she was so familiar and to which she had no reason to feel alien.  The round lamp in the corner of the room that served as the room's sole light source, the square dresser, the walk-in closet, and the cluttered bookshelf were all in place.  

       In short, this was the last place she expected to be.  Concurrently, though, her initial fear had dissipated and, with the benign surprise that replaced it, came a wave of reassurance to wash over her.

       "Well," she conceded, "I suppose it could be worse."

       She hopped off the bed and straightened out her clothing.  She had always hated the feel of her shirt after she slept in it.

       "What time is it?" it occurred to her to ask aloud.

       Rinoa turned her head slightly and lowered it to sniff the tip of her glossy, bare shoulder.  She couldn't smell the perfume she had put on in her quarters in Balamb Garden before heading down to the parking garage.  She lifted her wrist to her nose and did the same thing, only to find the same null effect.  The last test was to lick it.

       _Nothing, she ascertained.  _I can't even taste it, which means I've been out for at least two hours_._

       Recalling that he had never set a timepiece in his room, she walked over the blue carpet to the door, fully anticipating it to swing open and reveal the grandfather clock in the hallway.

       It was locked.

       "Jerk," she mouthed and spun back around to face the lonely, almost institutional furniture.  She did not understand how anyone could return every night to the same tasteless furniture and retire.

       Her objective still demanded attention, however, and she put her disbelief and grievance with the furniture selection aside where she was determined to let it rest until a more fortuitous time came up for her to bring it up again.

       There was now only one way left for her to find out the time.

       Rinoa walked over to the far side of the dreary room, grabbing the oaken bedpost that stretched to the ceiling and swinging herself halfway around in the process, before reaching the sagging blue drapes that hid the window through which she could look out onto the side lawn. 

       Having thrown the heavy velvet drapery aside, she met her own reflection in the window behind the fresh metal grating.  Had it not been for the light shower of rain lapping onto the green that drew her focus past the image on the glass, a stranger to the environs might have mistook it for a perfect mirror, barring notice of the iron barricades that stretched across from sill to sill.

       "I wonder if it's raining in Trabia," she murmured and softly bit her lower lip as she heard her own unwarranted mental addition sound in her head.

       _Hope Squall remembered to wear a jacket._

       Her intake on that breath was markedly sharp, unquestionably incited by the realization that once again her thoughts had beat her to the suggestion.  It was _her_ line, after all, and _she_ wanted to say it.  This way, it was as if she hadn't gotten the chance to express genuine concern; she had been cheated out of a sentimental victory and she would have to tolerate that fact _while she stomached the insufferable cost of risking the semblance of banality._

       She saw the characteristic non-responsiveness of her reflection as its way of mocking her.

       She was getting worse and worse at this; if she continued to lose ground at their present rate, she would be losing to herself to checkers _too, on top of chess.  She __had to start practicing moving her lips faster, and hopefully work her way up to the point where she could speak before it could think it out._

       She glowered at her reflection, determined to grapple for a least part of her fleeting dignity.  It was amazing how well things came together in the act of escaping her.  At that moment, even the vestige of some prestige would be nice, and if that was all she had for which to settle, she would.  How elated she would have been had her predicament been a separate issue!

       _Hehe, you're on!  her subconscious seemed to rejoin with a half-snigger.  The comfort with which it accepted her challenge could not have been good, she decided.___

_       And then the rub: __Anytime, anywhere._

       Rinoa was furious; her mind was taunting her!

       "The nerve of it!" she growled.

       The emptiness in any real movement in the glass brought her out of her thoughts and back into the world.  The image of her inquisitive doppelganger hazed and to it what was left of the uniscopic observable framework shifted oppositely, her focus abruptly recalling itself to converge on the world beyond the plane, pulling along with it whatever part of her mind she had not foreseen would set itself up for a downward spiral of self-defeating rumination. 

       _So it's still dark outside, she noted, __but when were these metal bars installed?_

       Rinoa was torn between two directions of thought.  Half of her wanted to question how recently the bars had been installed and whether their purpose was to keep thieves out or keep her in.  The other half was busy figuring out what day it was, the obvious problem being that there was no way she could have left Balamb that evening and wound up here that same night – the trip would take at least nine hours.  Yet, here she was, looking at the moon on the other side of the glass, and Rinoa was sure that unless she had been heavily drugged, it would have been impossible for an entire day to pass while she was unconsciousness.

       "So how did I wind up here?" she asked her reflection, which just tilted one of its eyebrows amusingly back at her.

       When the answer didn't come to her after a moment of staring at the glass expectantly, she forced herself to accept the fact that there was a rather potent new drug out on the market, the underground one if not the legal.

       _Better keep it away from Irvine, Rinoa considered.  __That boy always finds the time of day and the method to abuse to this kinda stuff._

       She smiled and playfully tugged at her hair to test its bounciness as she pondered further, _I wonder how Selphie keeps him on a leash when he's just dying to escape her all the time. _

       Her musings were interrupted by a huge gurgle from her stomach, loud enough to make her jump and drop the ebony strands of hair that she had placed in her mouth without realizing it.  She blushed, even though there was no one there except the other Rinoa in the dark windowpane, hands covering her stomach with an embarrassed look on her face.

       Though she wasn't entirely sure about the accuracy of her reading because of her lingering disorientation from just waking up, her initial conjecture from the decibel level of the groan was that it could not have signified a hunger one day more ravenous than when she had previously heard her stomach rumble.  Obviously she had either misheard the growl or what little she had of her sandwich ages ago in the cafeteria had only sped up her digestive tract.

       Her eyes narrowed with malevolence directed towards the imaginary sandwich that she recreated to float in front of her, taking care to make it look as guilty as possible.

       "Yeah," she scoffed, "you'd better be sorry, you ingrate!  After all the trouble I took to eat you, you evil, evil sandwich!"

       Rinoa felt her face growing red and, to top off her little tantrum, she grabbed one of the pillows from the bed and flung it at the imaginary, floating sandwich, just to remind it who was the boss.  Next time, before messing with her, it would remember to be more filling and less extensive spatially rather than the other way around.

       Her stomach growled again and she began to pout, chastising the rest of her body for expending so much energy while she was asleep.  It took her less than three seconds after her tirade to decide to look at her predicament in a more optimistic light.

       "At least no one fed you while I was asleep," she remarked to her belly, "because that would have completely defeated the purpose of this strict diet I'm on."

       She purposely scrunched up her nose in the process of chuckling more heartily, priding herself for being able to find something good in all the scenarios with which she was faced.  Besides, all it took was a light heart and a quick mouth to conquer the world.

       _What in the name of-_

_       Having heard a light rapping, Rinoa turned her eyes from the bed back to the wall from which the sound had emanated.  She lifted her hand and covered her mouth in surprise, realizing that it was impossible for someone to be on the opposite side knocking on the wall because this was one of the outermost rooms of the building.  Short of someone scaling the wall from the outside and slapping it, there was no way-_

       Another rap.

       Rinoa tensed and intuitively moved away from her position plainly in front of the window and slid up against the curtains where she could remain safely out of view from any voyeurs lurking on the lawn below or those planning to infiltrate the structure by climbing up its sides.  

       She tilted her head cautiously around the sill and tried to peek through the pane to discover the cause of the noise.  Rinoa instinctively moved her right hand over her left wrist to cock her blaster edge, but feeling nothing she looked down and blanched upon the realization that she was weaponless.

       She picked up the next best thing that her cell allotted and held it up against her.  As Rinoa around the edge of the window, her eyes did not catch anything that appeared to be out of the ordinary.  Nevertheless, she entertained the idea of thrusting the poker she had grabbed from the fireplace through the three inches of brick and limestone that separated her and, if she was right, the would-be wall-climber.

       It occurred to Rinoa shortly after that even three inches of paper would be difficult for her to puncture, so she readjusted her grip into a position that would expedite her swinging the poker as a bat should the occasion arise for her to do so.

       "This guy has _no_ idea whom he is messing with," she growled carnally, slowly swinging the poker back and forth in anticipation of striking whatever tried to crawl through the window. 

       Rinoa jumped out of her skin and dropped the poker when something struck the glass and caused it to rattle abruptly.

       She darted down to recover it before her mind registered what exactly it was of an immediate threat that faced her.

       "Hey," she checked herself, "that was a rock."

       Rinoa found herself halfway crouched over, frozen in that position from indecision about whether to actually grab the poker or to just leave it and investigate the introduction of the rock.

       "Up or down," she asked herself, "up or down?"

       Still unable to decide, she pulled back her hand every time it sneaked back towards the rod.

       "Come on, Rinoa, up or down?" she urged herself.

       She exhaled and then propelled herself upwards the window grating.  Leaning as close to the glass as the bars allowed, she shielded the part of the pane through which she was trying to peer from the lamplight behind her, revealing the reality behind the reflection.

       A thought of how dangerous a position into which she had placed herself ran through her head.  In response, Rinoa rolled sideways along the wall, away from the window.

       _The weird knocking sounds could have been shotgun shells! she chastised herself._

       Rinoa ran over to the single lit lamp and turned it off, cloaking the room in obscurity.__

       After waiting a short while for her pupils to dilate, she returned to the window by which it was now safe to stand.  The dark but distinct features of the green were illuminated to her eyes, and through the shimmering raindrops she quickly picked up the recognizable silhouettes of small trees and bushes.  She scrutinizes each shape and jumped quickly from one to the next, screening out the familiars and hoping to pick out the oddball.

       She found it.  Ten meters out and five degrees over.

       "Gotcha!" she cried.

       _Wait a minute!_

       She realized there was a second silhouette that did not belong.  More shocked than curious, Rinoa studied the two intruders attentively.

       She made out an arm, no, two arms, two legs, and a head on one.  On the other were the same characteristics.  Two humanoids.

       "What are they up to?" she whispered to the glass.

       One of the humanoids drew back its arm and flung it forwards.  In the next second, Rinoa heard the same loud rap coming from wall just off to her right.  The other humanoid followed in fashion and another rap sounded from her left.

       Red-hot embers of vehemence plunged into the moody waters within her and flash-boiled the scanty reservoir of composure she had been storing.  Who were these people that were trying to pelt her with stones?  Didn't they realize that they could hit something and break it?

       The intake of that last breath was rather sharp as it dawned on her how shattering the window was their main objective.

       "Vandals!" she cursed indignantly.

       For a split-second Rinoa entertained the idea of how she could preclude giving them the pleasure of defacing the property by breaking the window herself, after which she could follow up by casting the poker out through the metal bars and harpooning one of them.  It seemed reasonable enough, so she bent down and picked up the poker.

       The cold brazen handle warmed to her touch just like her rosy fingers blushed in reciprocal acknowledgement of contingence.

       How greatly did this crimson flush contrast with the snow-white pallor that seized her face as she rose, her eyes settling on the newest wave of rocks.  Her lips quivered, perhaps feeling the blood rush out of them, just as she now felt the projectile nearing its intended target, its well-aimed course dead set upon the diaphanous sheet in front of her face.

       It was definitely going to hit.

       Even as she dropped her poker to lift her hands to her face and shy away from the broken shards of glass that she foresaw would explode before her eyes, she recognized the option of personally shattering the window that her flinch had foregone.  At that she would have screamed "Damn!" had she not been preoccupied with cringing.

       In that moment of fear, when Rinoa squealed and raised her hands, the glass vanished in a blinding flash, leaving her more stunned than before.

       "What the hell-" she began to murmur.

       In her bedazzled blindness, the missile sailed through where the pane used to be and past the bars.  She did not see it among the flickering spots that harassed her vision until it was too late to dodge.  The stone struck her on the forehead and ricocheted onto her exposed shin.  

       Her body having registered the jab of pain, Rinoa collapsed with a cry onto the carpet like a wounded doe onto a grassy cushion.

       There was some commotion below, either revelry or confusion, but more likely the former.

       Sprawled on the floor and trembling in response to both pain and anger, Rinoa rubbed her head furiously with one hand and kneaded her leg with the other.  Someone was going to pay.

       She struggled onto her feet and limped over to window, still clutching her forehead where a nice bruise had sprouted.  On the way, she scooped up the offending rock.  If one missed the cursing, the position of her eyebrows was still clear indication of how she was not happy.

       Rinoa grabbed onto the bars for support and glared down at the two prowlers on the lawn.  They looked up waved, the last thing she expected them to do; uninvited guests usually bailed out upon their discovery.  So who exactly were these two?

       "Hey!  Rinoa!" the first called out, jumping up and down.

       Though her outline was slightly blurred by the sprinkling of raindrops, her mellifluous voice was readily identifiable to Rinoa's ears.  Rinoa gnashed her teeth.

       "Dabel LeBard," she mouthed.  _What a name.__  Geez, I haven't seen Darby for Shiva knows how long!_

_       After spending ten or eleven years together in the private and prestigious Trinity School for Ladies of Galbadia, every moment of which Rinoa had found to be suffocating and stringent, Rinoa had left on her own to join the Timber Owls resistance group full-time.  Dabel and the rest of their circle of close friends had applied and gotten into a highly selective art school located right in Deling City.  She had often wondered how different her life would have turned out had she spent that last year with the rest of the gang instead of running off to liberate the town._

       Frankly it was tough for Rinoa to fantasize about going to art school because her artistic abilities had always been denigrated by her close peers.  Most often her drawing skills were compared to her singing talent.  That made her especially mad because she had always assumed that the quality of her pipes was hereditary.

       Her mother was a great singer, so why wasn't it obvious to anyone else that she was just as gifted?  Dabel had repeatedly humiliated her by begging that she not give them a demonstration.  The group always sided with Dabel anyway, so Rinoa did not find it necessary to take heed in their assent for Rinoa not to open her mouth and impugn the natural beauty of lyrics.  An obsequious, dependent bunch they were – of that she was sure.

       "Did I ever see her after that?" Rinoa asked herself softly, trying to remember.

       The last activity she could recall clearly in which both of them participated was her sleepover party at the end of the summer.  It was one of the last nights that she would stay in her father's mansion.  She had invited the entire crew consisting of Autumn, Belbe, Cary Kay, Chemie, Darby, Elissa, Glassy, Harting, Jenna, Larissa, Rambey, Teeny, and Tilly after they raided the Deling shopping center that afternoon.  She secretly suspected that none of them would have accepted had they not been so curious about her boyfriend about whom she had been tantalizing them with sporadic pitches, calling him her dreamy mystery man.  Whether or not they believed a word of her gloating was irrelevant, as they had all fervently agreed to go home with her.  Rinoa had similarly been in so ebullient a high from the entire day's shopping, all of which she billed to her father, and from seeing each of the boys who were working construction over the summer drop their tools and gawk as the fourteen girls frolicked down the sidewalk and waved at them with their shopping bags in hand, that she did not concern herself with finding out which of the girls actually accepted her invitation to spend time with her and not the Seifer whom everyone had heard so much about but had never seen.

       From below, Dabel waved again and then said something to her companion whom Rinoa still could not make out, as if she cared.

       Dabel was going to get it.

       "Take this, Darby," Rinoa growled as she took aim of her former playmate's head.

       Rinoa sent the stone back down, which whistled as it worked its way through the thin sheets of water.

       Dabel cried out in surprise but managed to move out of the way.

       "What gives?" she screamed at Rinoa.

       "Blast!" Rinoa swore, jumping up and down.  "I missed!"

       Dabel's friend stepped forward into the gleam of moonlight.

       Rinoa scowled, seeing the signature white t-shirt, torn jeans, and red socks of her other schoolmate Cary Kay.  Rinoa was sure that if she had been standing next to the girl in broad daylight, she would have been able to find some tacky statement knitted on Cary Kay's sleeve.  "Bite Me" was the most promising contender.

       Cary Kay had also attended Rinoa's summer slumber party.  All the girls had decided to give her two names because it amused them to make her last name, Kazeno, diminutive.  Cary Kay was one of those people who did not mesh well with Seifer; not only did their personalities clash, but how seriously they each took the board game that everyone ended up playing, "FF: World Domination," ignited a fiery polemic that Rinoa was thrust into arbitrating.

       Apparently Seifer thought it to be more realistic if, instead of being able to fortify one territory with any number of regiments from an adjacent district at the end of his turn, he should be able to fortify into any district of his so long as they were all connected, as any military expert would have no doubt extended supply lines and transport routes throughout secure territory.  Of course, he had figured the weathering of the supply lines by the length at which it was necessary to maintain, so he proposed the cost of sacrificing an increasing number regiments for each additional district traversed.  Hence, where players could only move maybe ten units to one adjacent region before, Seifer's proposal would have paved the way for players everywhere to move ten units to that area, then nine to a neighboring sector, then eight to the next local, and so forth until only one unit remained, at which point no more fortification could be done.

       Cary Kay had thought that the idea was the stupidest thing she had ever heard of.  She would rather treat the penciled board decorations of the White SeeD ship and the huge sea monster as transport vehicles between Galbadia and Trabia and between the Deep Sea Research Center and the Island Closest to Hell respectively, and she told him so.  Seifer did not take well to being patronized.  After stopping Seifer from ending the dogged altercation "his way," meaning going to his Hyperion and lopping off Cary Kay's head, Rinoa had to restrict each one to a different room.

       After enough rain had fallen, Rinoa greeted Cary Kay calmly, "Hey, what's up?"

       Cary Kay coolly took a puff of the Malboro tentacle roll that she had between her fingers and handed it back to Dabel.

       "You are," Cary Kay replied, turning back to her.

       "Looks like I have to light it again," Dabel commented crossly after looking back a forth between the drizzling sky and the soggy cigarette butt.

       Cary Kay took up the bottom fold of her soaked, white t-shirt and rolled it up in her hands, making an effort to squeeze the water out.  It turned up sorely wrinkled upon her release, a sight that she found to her disliking.  To rectify the visual disaster, Cary Kay grabbed the creased area with both hands and wrenched it in opposite directions.  It took one more tear to create a nice triangular hole in the shirt that she found more acceptable before settling down again.

       "So are you going to invite us in or what?" Cary Kay asked, now with her hands on her hips.

       "What are you doing here?" Rinoa returned quickly.

       "Was there ever any doubt that we came to visit you?" Dabel questioned with an eyebrow raised.

       _For effect, obviously, Rinoa calculated.  __How she has mastered it!_

       "Darby, dear, you came to break the window," she corrected her friend verbally.

       "Did not," Dabel insisted and acted hurt before responding, "but to think you would accuse us of wandering all the way over here just to break windows!"

       Cary Kay snickered in accordance.  

       "Besides," Dabel added, "I don't even see a broken window."

       "Neither do I," Cary Kay concurred, "but she did manage to get your attention."

       "You two geniuses can't even tell which one is my window!" Rinoa practically screamed at her visitors.  "Did you think this was my room?"

       "Geez, don't blow a fuse," Dabel replied.  "This was the only lit room in the place."

       That was strange.

       "Why are all the lights out in the rest of the house?" Rinoa asked herself dubiously.

       "Can we talk inside?" Cary Kay asked again with a noticeably more irritated tone, "because it is getting awfully wet out here."

       "Aren't you afraid of the dogs?" Rinoa called down, ignoring the question.

       "If you let us in quickly," Cary Kay spelled out for her condescendingly, "that won't be a problem."

       "First tell me how you knew I was here before I even realized it," Rinoa bargained.

       Cary Kay took her torn shirt back up in her hands and thrust it in Rinoa's direction.

       "Can't you see that I'm wet?" she asked.

       "If you don't think it's worth it," Rinoa replied, "you're free to go."

       Dabel shrugged and tossed her Malboro onto the lawn.  She then grabbed Cary Kay's arm and beckoned her to leave.

       Cary Kay shook her companion's grasp off.

       "Darby, can't you see that I'm just trying to catch up with my old buddy?" she protested in a way that seemed to be more directed at Rinoa than at Dabel.

       Dabel hesitated long enough for Rinoa to discern from her perch that the girl was weighing the expected utility of seeing the inside of the house against the estimated number of additional gallons of water she would have to suffer before Rinoa would be most likely to consent to their entry.

       _Oh, Dabel thought bitterly, __but that require her to lift a finger.  _That's the problem with the upper class, nowadays – they consider themselves royalty and try to imitate it.  Stagnation!__

       Cary Kay saw right through her.

       "Oh, will you quit acting so melodramatic, Darbs?" she sneered.

       Dabel was no less impressed than she was deterred.

       "_You can stay here if __you want," Dabel spelled out for Cary Kay, "but I have better things to do than to appease some spoiled hussy on an ego-trip."_

       Cary Kay's eyes sparkled with glee, not believing that Dabel had blurted out their true opinion of Rinoa that they all had tactfully kept to themselves for the longest time.

       "How does it feel to get that out in the open?" Cary Kay asked excitedly.

       Dabel grinned evilly and replied, "Surreal."

       "Stop talking as if I can't hear you!" Rinoa shouted violently from her perch.

       _O Shiva, she thought with alarm mixed with disgust, _is that what my friends really think of me?__

       Cary Kay squinted in response and turned to Dabel.

       "Hey, Darby," she said, "did you hear something?"

       Fuming, Rinoa debated whether the clapping sounds of her shoes against Cary Kay and Dabel's heads were worth the cost of buying a new pair in case the girls decided to confiscate them.

       _Whatever, she decided, __I can always get my dad to buy me some replacements._

       Rinoa bent down conspicuously to undo her laces.  She had no reason to be furtive if they didn't anticipate her intention to sock them.

       "This is going to feel so good," she giddily assured herself.

       Her two visitors were still chattering when she managed to free herself from her footwear and let fly the shoes down towards their two unsuspecting targets.  They shrieked at the late realization and tried to bat the projectiles away.  The commotion that ensued would not go unnoticed.  The dogs were sure to be on them now.

       Rinoa, little concerned with the repercussions of trespassing with which her friends would be faced should they be apprehended by the standard security procedures that she knew by heart, doubled over laughing.  They had less than fifty seconds.

       _I was right, she reveled, __it was__ worth it!_

       Cary Kay rubbed her head gingerly and shouted with her fist raised, "You're even worse than Seifer!"

       Dabel took a break from massaging her wrist where it had been struck while she was shielding herself.  Looking at her companion, she imparted upon her sagaciously the words, "At least you didn't get hit by a gun-blade."

       "Why doesn't that make me feel any better?" Cary Kay shot back.

       Dabel shrugged and resumed nursing her wrist.

       Rinoa had meanwhile picked herself up and was amusedly listening in on their exchange.  At the mention of Seifer, though, her smile faded and she assumed a more pensive look.

       To her recollection, Seifer had not threatened more than a few times to hurl that gun-blade of his at Cary Kay.  That gun-blade was trouble.  That gun-blade was competition.  It went wherever he did, hugging his hip.  How unfair was that?  It was the only thing closer to him than was she!  He even had a name for it – Hyperion.  If it had a name, it was competition.

       In the end, though, Hyperion won out.  She recalled wishing that he would just leave it home one day and save her the trouble of standing between him and the neck of whoever offended him whenever they went on a date.

       Rinoa never figured out whether he was so inimical to Cary Kay because she felt the need to disagree with him on every point and had ventured to keep him under her surveillance like a watchdog, or Cary Kay was antagonistic to and scrutinized Seifer because he was so hostile to her.  Cary Kay had warned her about Seifer.  He was too creepy, and his eyes were wandering all over the place.  Rinoa had taken that as a compliment until Cary Kay informed her that Seifer's eyes never wandered over her.

       It was so ridiculous a notion that Rinoa had laughed it off.  Cary Kay had not found the matter as risible.  Rather than push Rinoa past the point exercising her good graces, though, Cary Kay conceded and left Rinoa in her deluded exultation.  Still, Cary Kay was unsatisfied and added quickly that Seifer was up to something.  More accurately, he was looking for something, and she should be careful.  Rinoa had more of an idea then than had she now what Seifer could have been after.

       "What a couple you two make," Cary Kay shouted bitterly at Rinoa, interrupting her ruminations.

       "We're not together anymore," Rinoa answered so quietly that Cary Kay was just barely able to pick it up.

       "What happened?" Cary Kay probed, suddenly interested in what could very well turn out to be a winning piece of Sunday bowling night gossip.

       _Probably forgot their ten thousand-minute anniversary, Dabel guessed.  __Matters a lot to some weird people I know._

       "He tried to kill me," Rinoa muttered slowly.

       Cary Kay nodded knowingly and remarked, "Yeah, that would do it."

       _This is juicier than I thought, she acknowledged._

       "Cute," Dabel agreed and licked her lips.  _What a smoothie!_

       "Was it like for an anniversary gift or something?" Cary Kay asked with a smirk.

       Rinoa scowled at both of them but was too angry to say anything.

       "So who are you with now?" Cary Kay questioned with a glint of curiosity in her eye.

       Rinoa mouth dropped to the floor.

       "What do you take me for?" she screamed at them.

       "I think Dabel said it a few minutes ago," Cary Kay replied lightly.

       Rinoa bitterly regretted not having a third leg that could provide her with a third shoe to hurl at her slanderers.  She looked around frenetically for any loose pieces of furniture that no one would miss.  She was sure that _she would not miss._

       Reading Rinoa's facial expression perfectly, both Cary Kay and Dabel backed a few steps away from the window.  They could handle the shoes, the books, and even the lamp, but the fact that Rinoa had access to the freestanding bed was not an empty threat that they wished to entertain.  Dabel urged the General constantly to nail all the furniture to the floor, but Cary Kay had pointed out that it would be much cheaper and more effective to just nail Rinoa down.  True, the bed was much larger than the window, but with Rinoa, one never knew.  In their minds, to retreat a few steps was a small price to pay to avoid catching the bed with their heads.

       "Obviously her temper hasn't improved between that creepy mercenary and the midget druggie," Cary Kay grumbled to Dabel.

       "What's _that_ supposed to mean?" Rinoa demanded, putting her hands on her hips with her jaw jutting out.

       "Face it, Rinoa," Cary Kay laid it out for her, "you can't be alone."

       Dabel nodded, adding, "The only thing that frightens you more than having your credit card rejected is being by yourself."

       "You're the most needy, dependent, attention-craving person we know," Cary Kay finished off the thought.

       Rinoa was about to protest out of habit before she felt a hole gnawing on the insides of her stomach.  The emptiness began to spread, growing quickly in size, and swallowed her whole.  She wasn't sure if her cry was stifled because her body numbed up or because her mind had.   The only thing she could be sure of was that the entire process took place in no more than a blink of an eye, given that she didn't even have time to react to the panic attack.  They had become more frequent since that night in the corridor with the two Iguions.  She would freeze just as she froze then.

       _It's different when you have company because when you're alone, it's a lot harder to hide from yourself.  That's when you stare at yourself, right in the face, and see who you really are._

       Was this her mind talking or her now?

       _If someone chances upon you while you think you're alone, then it is even harder to hide yourself from him.  By the time you're through staring at yourself eye to eye, he's seen it all._

       Maybe it was both.

       _I'm just crying to be discovered.  Maybe then, that someone might save me from what I don't even dare to face myself.  I'm so alone._

       Was that really her?  How sad.

       _I'm so alone.  And I'm so scared.  Scared of what I might see when I'm this alone.  I wouldn't know what to do.  Can Squall see me?  Did Seifer?  What do they think?  Can they rescue me?  I'm so scared.  Don't leave me Squall.  Please, don't._

       Rinoa was about to cry.

       "Yo!" Cary Kay called, shattering the suffocating, cocoon-like blanket of despair around her,  "Earth to Rinoa."

       "That's not what I was asking," Rinoa clarified numbly, coming back to her senses.  "I meant, what did you mean by the 'midget' thing?"

       "Isn't your new boyfriend a dwarf?" Dabel asked with a look of confusion creeping into her delicate features.

       "No," Rinoa replied, matching Dabel's perplexed expression, "why would you think that?"

       "Some short guy had to carry you and Angelo out of the car and into the house," Cary Kay explained in good humor, obviously figuring that she would have to go along with Rinoa for a length before trumping her.

       "We figured you all overdosed or something," Dabel followed up.  "You should tell your new lover boy no to drive while he is high."

       Cary Kay slapped her thigh and snickered, "I can't believe you even gave Angelo a hit."

       "That's so typical of Rinoa," Dabel commented with a hint of scorn in her voice.

       Still clueless, Rinoa began to ask, "What are you two babbling ab-"

       She stopped as the buildings' external lights turned on, lifting the obscurity from the lawn and startling her two visitors.  The sudden flood of light dazzled Rinoa's eyes, forcing her to squint before her irises constricted to a more comfortable size of reception.

       "There they are!  Get them!" blared over loudspeaker in the courtyard, echoed instantly by three gunshots.

       Cary Kay and Dabel jumped at the sounds but were too startled at first to move.  The barking of what one would like to hope wasn't a pack of hungry canines in the area quickly remedied their paralysis, though, and the two girls took off into the undergrowth.  Whether or not they would leave the perimeter unscathed would depend on how nimbly they could scale the fence on the other side of the dense shrubbery.  The agility of the dogs was such that it left no room for error, much less for sloth.

       Rinoa was too busy pondering their cryptic conversation to worry herself over their perilous situation.  Subconsciously she felt justified in her way of prioritizing, having already allotted a time in the future to mourn for them should the hounds manage to catch them and proceed to tear apart their bodies.

       "So whoever he is, he got Angelo too," Rinoa whispered to herself, still trying to figure everything out.

       "Let go, you mutt!" she heard Cary Kay scream from a distance.

       Three sharp raps sounded from the door.  Rinoa spun around and watched as the brass knob turn a third of a revolution and the door slowly swung open.  The hinges were well greased, and the sturdy wood turned round about noiselessly, revealing in the doorway a middle-aged man in a military uniform that sported various medals and an insignia of a high-ranking official.

       "Why did you lock me in here, General Caraway?" she asked him coldly.

       "I would think that 'Dad' or 'Father' would save you about four syllables," he answered dryly, deliberately avoiding answering her question.

       "I asked you a question," Rinoa repeated, not willing to be denied.

       "That you did," Caraway agreed, but making no effort to straighten the situation.

       _Something is up, Rinoa told herself.  __He's not being obsequious to me anymore.  Usually he kills himself to succor my good will.  Has he given up?  But I need those shoes!_

       "If you don't tell me why you had one of your henchmen abduct me, I'm walking," she huffed, and made her way to the door with a confident toss of her hair over her shoulder for effect.  She knew how convincing it looked to men, indexing just the message she needed – that she wasn't going to put up with any crap and that she had made up her mind.

       As she tried to walk past him, he stuck his hand out, planting it firmly against the wall, and thus blocking her exit.  Lip quivering, Rinoa looked up at him in shock.

       "Sit down," he grumbled without turning his head to look at her.

       "Who do you think you-" she began to protest.

       He interrupted her unexpectedly by shouting, "Sit down!"

       Rinoa felt the blood drain from her face as she fell into the nearby chair, wondering what had come over her father.

       "You pathetic ingrate," he reproached her coldly, "do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused me?"

       Before she could answer, he continued to vent at her, "You use my own money to fund your resistance group against Galbadia and neglect to inform me of your whereabouts for weeks?"

       He struck the wall with his fist, prompting Rinoa to jump out of her skin.  She could see the dents in the tough plaster.  Apparently it wasn't tough enough.  This surprised her because it seemed as sturdy as rock from the outside.

       "How dare you?  Do you know how worried I was?" he hollered.  "How many scouts I sent out just to ascertain whether or not you were even alive?"

       Either he didn't notice that his daughter was hanging her head in shame, being too scared and ashamed to look him in the eye, or that tears had begun to fall into her lap, because he went on, "Informants don't come cheap, Rinoa!  I had to pay good Gil just to find out you were in good health, and even more to discover where you were hiding.  This is your home you've renounced!  And all you can think about now are your stupid shoes!"

       Rinoa felt how dry the ceiling of her mouth was and realized that her lower jaw had been hanging open for quite some time.  It probably fell when she was forced into the chair by his lashing words.  She had no success trying to moisten it with her tongue though; her entire mouth was parched.  She felt so horrible for the consternation she had caused her father to suffer.

       Rinoa was not prepared for her father to force her to her feet by grabbing the back of her shirt collar.  He shoved her in front of the doorway just so she could peer out at the long carpeted path flanked by numerous nameless doors, each identical and all indifferent to her individual plight.

       One of the doors at the far end of corridor was open and the room was lit.  If her memory served her correctly, that was the communication room.  Following a buzz of static, an audio transmission came through clearly from the transceiver, "Hello?  General, are you there?"

       Rinoa scowled, trying to remember to whom that voice belonged.  She had heard it somewhere, that same goofy, half-witted phonation.  Could it possibly be Laguna's voice?  It had to be, she decided.

       With his iron grip still squeezing her collar, Caraway told her, "And despite all of this, here I am, setting up with the President of Esthar your betrothal to Squall Leonhart, that SeeD."

       Rinoa could hardly believe her ears.  The image of her trying on various wedding dresses in front of her girlfriends flashed before her eyes.  Yet, something about the lighting, even though it was just a mental picture, was wrong.  The entire picture lacked the brightness she had come to associate with most wedding pictures.  Did it mean anything, or was it just her imagination?  Was this a classic case of the mind playing tricks on the light?  Why shouldn't it be, if so often in reality the light played tricks with the mind?

       "So if you know what is good for you, you self-centered brat, stay in this room," General Caraway menaced, throwing her back in her seat.  "Otherwise, if you want this job as a father, you can have it!"

       "I'm sorry," she managed to utter, teary-eyed and choking up.  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

       Feeling that he had said all he needed to say, the General lifted his chin and turned away from her, still repeating her apologies, to leave.

       "But all of my dolls and playthings are in my room!" Rinoa wailed suddenly, lifting her head and gesturing in the direction of her room down the hall.

       He spun around, lifting his index finger with a look on his face so serious that it deterred her from testing him.

       "Grow up, Rinoa," he growled, his face coloring slightly.  "You'll live, I'm sure."

       "What about Angelo?" Rinoa ventured to ask, not sure where she unearthed the courage to do so.

       "That mutt won't stop barking in his kennel," Caraway replied to her surprise.  "I'll see to it that he's brought here.  Maybe you can shut him up." 

       He left with a sinister smirk on his face.  Something about how he curled the edge of his lips bothered Rinoa.  It was almost as if he was sure that she would fail in the endeavor he had just dared her to take, and he was humored by it!

       He stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.  There were sounds of the key slipping into the keyhole and setting the lock back in place.

       "Oh, and no other visitors," she heard him say from the other side of the door.

       Rinoa listened as his heavy footsteps grew softer until they escaped her auditory detection completely.  A second later she heard the door to the communication room slam shut.  Only then did she let out a sigh, followed by a few deep breaths.

       _Where is my father?  she wondered, feeling her arms and legs trembling._

       Exhausted by the lecture, but reliving its horrors as the words echoed in her ears, Rinoa numbly made her way to the bed.  She grabbed one of the larger, fluffier pillows and slid down on the ground beside the bed, whimpering softly.

       "I'm so alone," she repeated to herself, burying her head in the pillow and clutching it close,  "Please, Squall, don't leave me."

       _I'm so scared, scared, scared…_

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	19. Setting 16: 2128 DAY 15, Trabia Coastbor...

Setting 16: 2128 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Forests 

_"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts,_

_than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."_

-Gandhi

       _"'S_cared' she'd called me," Zell scoffed at the recollection of the challenge he had received from the waitress in the Chinese diner ten minutes prior.  One two, one two.

       The night grass was crisp beneath his feet, their resiliency buoying up each of his steps.  The effect was an overall springier sprint through the shadow-shrouded underbrush.  At the same time, he did not forget how his brand new running shoes factored into the elastic benefit he was now enjoying.  One two, one two.

       "Who's scared?" Zell objected.  "Certainly not I."

       As he surged into the forest, the patterns of the branches flashed across his ivory skin that matched the moonlight, pale for pale.  One two, one two.

       _I am a leopard.  I am a striped stallion.  I am a speckled owl._

       Zell hurdled nimbly over a fallen log, cart-wheeled between two boulders, and then leapt over a crevice.  Keeping the count in his head, he realized that the only way to land and resume his run without losing his rhythm would involve a mid-air flip and then a roll to get back on his feet.  One two two-and-one, one two two-and-two.  He pulled it off to perfection.

       One two, one two.

       _I am a mountain lion._

       Zell caught a glint of moonlight from a puddle on the ground ahead and realized that an entire segment of the trail before him was still muddied from the recent showers.  He wondered if he could afford spoiling his brand new sneakers before he had even broken them in.  The passing trees were all slanted just enough from the vertical and supple enough to act as springboards.  That gave him a crazy idea.

       He accelerated slightly.  One two three, one two three.

       Just as he reached the edge of the boggy terrain, Zell grabbed one of the overhanging branches and used his forward momentum to swing himself into the air.  On the way, he caromed off one of the plane trees on the side, touched off another, and continued ricocheting from tree to tree until he had reached the other side without setting foot in the wet earth.  One two two-and-a-half, one two two-and-a-half.

       After jumping onto the last sapling, he tarried a moment longer, hoping to maximize on the boost it would give him when it snapped back.  It worked, and he was able to perform a back-flip with the additional height.  He didn't lose a single beat upon his soft landing, smoothly resuming his running.  One two, one two.

       _I am a hawk._

       He was nearing an even larger gorge.  It would take a running leap to traverse it, and so Zell picked up the pace.

       One two three four, one two three four, one leap...

       _I am a rock, he thought as he reached the peak of his trajectory, eagerly anticipating the moment in which the soles of his feet would reconnect with solid ground._

       ...land two, one two, one two.

       He somersaulted over a few potholes, rolled under and through the space between the grass and a tree stalk that had snapped and collapsed over its trunk.  Scrambling to his feet, Zell tucked his body in for a mini-flip that carried him over a hedge.  The next ravine was too wide to jump, but the vines dangling from overhead gave him the extra yards he needed.

       Zell took a deep breath, decelerated, and jogged in place to give his heart ample time to slow down to it's normal rate of reps.  He turned around and was satisfied that not even the watch tower, at the moment the highest point of Nova Trabia Garden constructed, was visible from where he stood.  Maybe if he climbed to the top of that nearby evergreen it would come into view.

       He had run nearly two miles on a full stomach and it vexed him that he had not run into a single monster along the way.  Someone deserved a beating and he was going to give that beating.  His pulse had dropped to normal by this time, and, holding his arms out, he closed his eyes.  Taking a deep breath, Zell commenced to clear his mind of all the excess baggage it had picked up during the course of the day.  His body operated more effectively without the mental burden anyway.  It was so easy to get distracted by all the disparaging remarks people made about him.  But this was his alone time.  This was officially Zell time, during which Zell could appreciate Zell's own opinions and the forest would bow reverently to Zell's presence.  Two miles away from civilization, he was certain that there would be nothing but happy thoughts from here on out.

_       I am a chump._

       Having ruined the moment, Zell flopped down on a patch of grass that promised to be fluffy.

       It lied.

       Zell groaned and shifted his weight to a more comfortable spot.  It seemed as if the entire world were against him today.  In truth, there was probably little to be gained from cursing at that tuft of grass.

       He told it off at it anyway.  If need be, he would be the best damned blasphemer of rocks the world had ever seen.

       But he was a chump.  He had admitted that just a few seconds ago, had he not?

       The waitress must have thought so after his embarrassing performance in the diner.

       Zell buried his face in his hands.  He felt like screaming.  Eventually he settled back and grinned, realizing that he'd probably laugh at the whole incident some day.

       _Yeah, when I'm six feet under and no one can hear me, he contended caustically._

       He would think twice before accepting any challenges from the young waitress just to impress the girls seated at the nearby tables.

_       Besides, that's Irvine's métier._

       Zell swallowed with difficulty, the knot in his throat ascribed to his realization of how dangerously close he had come to becoming Irvine Kinneas.

       Thinking back to the occasion, he was puzzled by why he even felt the need to impress them.  It wasn't as if he didn't already have a girlfriend.

       Zell sighed and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.

       He missed her.  He missed her so much.

       What a chump he was!

       Whoever told him that his body was composed of mostly water was dead wrong.  He had been feeling completely hollow inside ever since the night of the celebration in Balamb Garden when he last saw Mina.  The moment he realized that Mina had left, it was as if all the hot dogs he had eaten that evening vanished into the void he housed within.  He didn't have any luck finding her on any of the three floors, but while double-checking the first floor he had run into a crabby Rinoa as she emerged from her room.  Had Rinoa not called him dense so many times for interrupting her one moment with Squall, Zell would have readily accepted the pretense of his innards being composed of air alone.  It sure felt like it.

       He had been running on empty for over two weeks.****

       On some subconscious level, he was probably willing to do anything to make the hurt go away, even if it meant indulging in an alternative source of attention.   The fifteen days of Mina deprivation had been costly.  The more he longed to hear her voice, the more he thought he heard it.  It always turned out to be someone else though, much to his disappointment.  The rub was that the more he thought he heard her voice, the more he longed to hear it for real.  Trapped in this deleterious, never-ending cycle, he was afraid that he might become delusional if his situation were not remedied soon.

       He had been so depressed when he entered 'Garden Ricebox'.  He must have ordered something before sitting down, but he wasn't entirely sure.  The alluring voice of Mina asking him how he was doing had pushed him to look up, yanking him out of his stupor with more force than the _Ragnarok_ turbine could supply.  The genuinely concerned face his eyes focused on belonged to a female Garden student of no more than fifteen years.  No surprise there; every girl had begun to sound like Mina.

       Upon seeing her and realizing that his addresser was not his girlfriend, he had frowned in annoyance.  Who was she, a total stranger, to approach him when he had not first solicited her commiseration?  Did he have a sign on his head that said, "I am miserable, please comfort me"?  Then he figured out that his banging his head repeatedly against the table had probably tipped her off.  With that thought, his features had softened and he had bid her to take a seat across from him.

       She did not sit down initially, rather she just stood there sipping on her beverage that he would later find out was a Mogberry Arctic Latte.  She just stared at him.  That one moment that seemed to drag on to infinity was devoid of everything and everyone except her, her large, round eyes, the red straw between her lips, and him.  He could almost picture Mina doing the same thing, nibbling on the straw in a thoughtful manner; it did not seem to matter whether or not the plastic tasted any differently in another color.

       An instant later, Zell had progressed beyond just almost picturing Mina in this girl's shoes, and actually did picture her standing there gnawing on the plastic.

       "Hi," the girl introduced herself cheerfully, "I'm Rishi."

       She extended her hand for him to shake while asking his name.

       It was so small.  He had marveled at how dainty a thing his new acquaintance was.  He was dimly aware that he had not inhaled for quite some time.

_       Could it...Mina?_

       Now he wished that he had taken her hand.  It didn't seem right for him to snub her like that, but she was probably too kind-hearted a creature to care.  She just wanted his name, and he was making her wait for it.  What a chump he was to keep her waiting!  What was he going to say?

_       Why, I'm the great Zell Dincht, savior of the world, of course!_

       He tried to remember what he really answered.  It was something to the effect of "Zell," but through a stammer that lasted for about ten seconds.

       She squinted with a small degree curiosity, trying to piece together what he had said, though he read mostly pleasant amusement in her gaze.  Never once did her smooth petals for lips leave the confidence of the straw.

       The girls sitting at the table behind where she was standing and where he guessed she had come from were giggling.  A little bit of rose found its way to her cheeks, and Rishi, realizing that she herself was blushing, looked furtively at her toes and wiggled her shoulders, holding her hands behind her back.  But she kept on sweetly sipping her latte, not wishing to encroach on his personal space that was not exactly overflowing with confidence at the time.  It hadn't occurred to him just then how thoughtful she was being.

       Their giggling had become quite distracting.

_       How many girls were there?_

       Zell looked over at their table but stopped counting when he got to three.  He felt his time was better spent letting his forehead fall back onto the table.  He was not aware of the pain at the time, but judging from how loud the impact sounded, it should have hurt a lot.

       Though he was staring straight at the tabletop, out from the corner of his eyes he could see Rishi half saunter, half skip around him and take a seat beside him, tacitly turning down the chair he had offered across from where he sat.  This deliberate gesture managed to carry a meaning more explicitly received by Zell than implicitly.

       Amazingly enough, the girls at the other table grew silent.

       "Tell me what's wrong, Z-z-z-z-z-z-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l," Rishi joked, matching the pitch of each phoneme Zell had stuttered through as his introduction.  There was also a subtle twang of a southern accent in her voice, obviously inserted to goad him into looking up.

       Zell snorted but did not look up.  On a brighter day, he would probably have fallen out of his seat laughing, but on that same day, he also wouldn't have introduced himself like a scratched record.  On a brighter day, he would not have caught her interest by banging his head against the table over and over.  Mina was simply radiant.  Someday he would have to ask her how she managed to light up the room the way she always did.  It was a pity that he usually took that light for granted, not realizing how much it was worth until he was ensconced in darkness. ****

       _What I wouldn't give to put my arm around her right now._

_       My arm.  I would not give up my arm._

_       Shut up, Zell!  You think too much._

       Zell blinked.  He didn't think too much, did he?  _At least I don't think so_.__

_       Yes!  You either don't think at all, or when you do, you think too much!_

       Zell frowned.  _Wha-?_

_       Stop arguing with yourself, Zell._

_       Stop arguing with me then!  Zell hollered silently.___

_       You're pathetic Zell.  The only time you activate me, you choose to think about this kind of stuff._

_       No one asked you to come, Zell reasoned._  Feel free to leave.__

_       I just might._

       Zell froze.  It occurred to him that it would not bode well for him if his mind actually decided to leave.  _No!  Come back!_

_       See?  You're scared of me._

       Zell sniffed sardonically.  _I'm not scared of you._

_       You're terrified._

_       Well, Zell conceded reluctantly, shoulders dropping, _maybe just a little_.___

_       You are such a chump._

       The table looked a lot bigger when his eyes were right on top of it.  He had no idea that loneliness was this cold.  It was a wonder that Squall could endure it.  It explained the all-weather jacket at least.

       His vision compromised, Zell was not aware of Rishi's facial expression at this point, but was pretty sure that she was still sucking on that straw.  Even though he had not made a real attempt, he did not want her to leave either.  She was a curiosity, and a very likable one too.  It surprised him how much she reminded him of Mina.

       He heard a screech as the legs of her chair rubbed against the floor.  She pushed the seat back, preparing to leave.

       _Is she getting up to go? he wondered frantically._

       No.  She had placed both hands on his shoulder and started shaking him, begging him to talk to her.__

       He spared a moment to twist his head slightly for a better view.  He found himself staring right into her big brown eyes, barely two inches away from her face.

       "Ha!" Rishi cried triumphantly.  "I see you!"

       Zell was too surprised to say anything.  She had caught his mind napping and that being the case, he figured his mouth didn't have a chance at producing a message more coherent than his initial pronouncement.  Only one escape route lay open to him.

       Zell turned back to the table.

       Rishi frowned as if her feelings had been hurt, or at least he imagined she did.  Giving him a quick shove, she whined, "You're so mean to me!"

       "But I don't even know you!" Zell cried in his defense, his tone rife with exasperation.

       He regretted it immediately, dreading the sight of the wounded look on her face.

_       Maybe she won't…_

       He checked, blindly hoping that she hadn't taken him seriously.  After all, she could very well have mistaken the direction of the comment.  He _did happen to be facing the table when he spoke._

_       Shoot!  _She does_._

       What a chump he was!

       He knew the signs well.  Her brow had already begun crease, and the slight quivering in those flushed cheeks was sure to follow.  Next her face would fall, and after that would come the deluge.  It would be a natural disaster, lest he do something to salvage the situation.

       To his apprehension, he did not find a single Blind spell in his magic stock.  Granted it was not the most ethical way to stop someone from crying, but Zell considered himself a flexible guy.  In this particular juncture, he was especially open to any sort of solution.

       Nothing presented itself.  He was getting so tired of seeing Nothing.

       Drops of sweat lined his forehead as he settled in for the worst.

       "I just wanted to ask if you wanted to try a sip of my Mogberry Arctic Latte," Rishi wailed, loud enough to earn the sympathy of every customer in the restaurant and make him the villain in their eyes, "and offer to buy you one if you liked it!"

       Zell kept his face glued to the counter.  It's cool surface did not quench the burning sensation he felt about his face.

       Eyes watering, she continued to pout, "But so far all you've been talking to is the table."

       Her voice indicated that she was neither happy nor kidding.  Zell was sure this time around that his ears had not deceived him when they registered Mina's voice; it was perfectly legitimate for him to have thought that that because to him, all girls sounded the same when they were upset.

       "You make me feel so ugly," Rishi sobbed, her tears running down the sides of her face as she sipped the last of her latte.

       "But you're really pretty," he replied, at last lifting his head from the table and turning his entire body to face her.

       She responded by turning away from him and burying her face in the sleeve of her Garden uniform.

       "I don't believe you!" she cried, unmistakably moping.

       "Please believe me," Zell insisted gently, putting his hand on her shoulder.

       "Prove it," Rishi pouted, wiping her eyes with the handkerchief that each Garden student was required to keep tucked in the sleeve of their uniform.

       Zell blinked, not sure how to prove the verity of his words.  Unlike Irvine, he didn't carry a mirror with him wherever he went.

       "How do I prove it?" he asked Rishi.

       "Order something on the menu and eat with me," she replied too quickly for Zell to believe that she did not have a response planned ahead of time.

       Zell was about to protest that he had already ordered something, but decided against it because it was perfectly possible that he never did and just assumed that he had.  It was also too much work for him to rationalize how Rishi figured his eating and her beauty were related, so he just sat back and shrugged.  Rishi took his silence as his assent, and she waved brilliantly to get the notice of the waitress.

       "Can I help you?" the lady asked after she walked over, taking out a pen and her notepad.

       "Order something, Zell," Rishi urged, nudging his arm.

       _The Mina Deluxe Dinner Special, please._

_       "Um, anything is fine," he voiced instead._

       Rishi made a face, making Zell wonder what he had done wrong.

       The waitress kindly pointed out that he would have to give her the number of the item to write on her notepad; otherwise, the kitchen would not know what to prepare.

       "Thirty-four," Zell made up quickly.

       His serveuse raised an eyebrow while she jotted the number down, but his response seemed to satisfy her.  Rishi didn't give him a hard time after that.  Instead, she just relaxed her face and smiled.  As the waitress headed for the kitchen, Zell settled his head back onto the table.

       "So there!" Zell affirmed, speaking into the polished wood.  "You're not ugly at all."

       "Neither are you," countered Rishi, "so why were _you_ hiding your face?"

       _I am a chump._

       The words echoed through his empty system.

       _Maybe you're right, he admitted._

       He was a chump, wasn't he?

       _Yup._

       Zell wasn't sure if it was he who had assented or the annoying little voice in his head.

       "I'm just really sad," Zell admitted at last.  "You could almost say that I'm lost."

       "Why?" asked Rishi.

       "This girl-" Zell began.

       Rishi's face suddenly brightened, and a look of interest her crept into her eyes.

       "– I haven't seen in forever, and it's killing me," Zell finished.

       It was getting rather stuffy in the diner, but Rishi didn't seem to notice.  Was it all in his head, then?

       "And?" Rishi probed, eyes flashing.

       "And what?" Zell echoed defensively.

       "What else?" Rishi begged.  "I want to know." 

       "Why do you want to know?" he inquired suspiciously.

       "'Cause I just do; I'm a girl.  Tell me!" she whined, shaking his arm.

       Zell hesitated, debating whether or not the excuse she had given him would have been valid in a court of law.

       "Pretty please?" Rishi tried.

       Zell didn't budge.  For some reason that eluded him at the present, this scene seemed awfully familiar to him.

       "I love hearing about this sort of thing," she pleaded again when she saw that he unconvinced.

       In a more ominous tone, she added, "Humor me or I won't let go."

       She had a nice grip.  He had to give her that much.  There was also a subtle tone of fierce determination in her voice.  He read from her expression that she was not afraid to call all of her girl friends over and pressure him if he refused.

       At this point he was too heartsick to indulge in a game to see if she would go back on her word.  Seeing how there was no easier way out of his predicament, Zell sighed and settled back in his seat, concurrently lifting his head and staring at her with a defeated look on his face.

       She covered her mouth with a free hand, trying desperately to hide a laugh that the sight of Zell's red forehead had incited.  His temple had been glued to the table too long.

       "Do you want to listen or not?" Zell demanded, feeling a flash of annoyance.

       "Yup yup," she chirped, quickly regaining her composure.

       "Are you friends with Mina Charleston?" Zell asked.

       Rishi nibbled on her fingernail as she tried to recall when she had last heard the name, but at last shook her head.

       "Sounds familiar, but I can't place the name with a face," she admitted.

       "She works in the library," Zell added.

       "Oh!" Rishi exclaimed in surprise.  "You mean the pretty one?"

       "She's probably not the only pretty one, but I'd say the prettiest," Zell replied honestly.

       Rishi looked rather envious, but she signaled for him to go on with his story.

       "I keep beating myself up because I hardly paid any attention to what she was saying on the night she left," Zell continued, "and now I really want to know!"

       "You guys never listen us when you should," Rishi pointed out critically.

       "That's because we get chastised like we didn't hear you or something, even if we did," Zell asserted.

       "But you never seem like you want to hear what we're saying," Rishi said.

       "I love hearing Mina talk, even if it's not about anything in particular," protested Zell.  "I just save the work of listening for special occasions."

       _Like when she's waving a knife._

       "Is that why you don't have a clue what she tried to tell you that night?" Rishi guessed, realizing the difference Zell was trying to draw between hearing and listening.

       "Basically," Zell conceded, clearly surprised by how quickly she caught on.

       _Basically, Zell's thoughts echoed, __I am a chump._

       "What were you doing instead?" she asked.

       Zell colored slightly and answered, "Eating."

       Rishi rolled her eyes.

       "What did you do after she left?" she questioned, moving on.

       _I wilted and slapped myself silly._

       "What do you think I did?" Zell countered.  "I chased after her of course!"

       "I'm guessing you didn't have any luck," Rishi remarked.

       Zell shook his head sullenly.

       _Nope, luck was not on my side like it was at the Balamb nightclub.  That was the first time I ever saw her.  Wasn't too articulate that evening, but I can't blame myself for that.  She nearly leveled me when she came over and commanded me to dance with her*.  My lower jaw had to be on the floor.  I was so weak!  I am so weak…and she capitalized on it.  Led me around like an euphoric puppy off to bury a big bone.  Nearly fell down when she pressed her warm body against me too.  Knees were shaking so hard…Zell you weakling!  She had to have noticed.  Must have thought I was a total klutz.  I'm such a chump!  And now there's this other guy-_

          *Raine Ishida (nanaki_17@hotmail.com)

           gives the full account of Zell's first

           encounter with Mina in "Dance."

       Rishi waved her hand in front of his face, calling out, "Hello?"

       When he was slow to respond, she started slapping him repeatedly on the arm with her small palms and pouted, "Talk to me, you big ol' meanie!"

       Zell was thus coerced to repeat everything he had just thought to her.  He did not notice the periodic dreamy sighs she'd give or how her face flushed.  It seemed odd that he could say all these things in front of a total stranger and not feel awkward about it, but he supposed it was easier to talk to a woman.  He could not imagine himself having this conversation with Squall or Irvine.  Or Seifer, for that matter.

       "Are you sure you did a good job looking for her?" Rishi asked.

       "I checked every floor twice!" Zell exclaimed.  "Then I checked her room, her best friend Helen's room, and their mutual friend Janiika's room."

       "Was that all she was worth to you?" Rishi jeered.

       "No!" Zell huffed.  "I even ran all the way to Balamb to see if she had gone to Helen* or Janiika's houses."

          *Raine Ishida (nanaki_17@hotmail.com)

           gives the full account of Mina's friends

           in "The Library Girl's Secret."

       "Did you bother to check the landing pier or the ticket booth?" asked Rishi.

       Zell's eyes widened, mentally kicking himself for not thinking of that at the time.

       Why hadn't he thought of that?

       _Chump._

       He was about to snatch Rishi's drink and pour what was left of it onto his face when the waitress returned with the dish he had ordered.  It was actually a large bowl with a lid on it as opposed to an actual dish.  She set it on the table in front of him.

       "Number thirty-four," she announced matter-of-factly and waited for him to open the lid so she could take it back into the kitchen.

       Zell lifted the lid, revealing noodles and vegetables immersed in a reddish liquid.

       "What is this?" Zell asked.

       "Number thirty-four," the waitress repeated as if she were replying to a nincompoop.

       "What is number thirty-four?" Zell tried a second time.

       "What you ordered," the lady answered in exasperation.

       Zell felt stupid.

       "That's just tomato and carrot juice, right?" Zell attempted one final time to seek her reassurances.

       "Sure," the waitress returned absent-mindedly, relieving him of the lid in his hands instead of the doubt in his mind.

       "Hurry up and eat," Rishi urged him, tugging on his elbow.

       The waitress witnessed this and smirked.

       "It's better to eat it all while it's still warm," she told him.

       In afterthought, she added, "If you're not scared, that is."

       _Scared?  Who's scared?_

       Leaning over, she whispered furtively in Zell's ear, "It really impresses the ladies when you eat the whole thing in one breath."

       Zell looked from the big bowl of noodles to the waitress to Rishi to the table of girls whose eyes had not left them from the moment Rishi sat down and back to the waitress again.

       "They would?" he asked with a questioning look.

       She shrugged and replied earnestly, "I would be." 

       Zell took her input under consideration.  Rishi's insistence, meanwhile, persisted.  The girls at the opposite table blushed in unison when he cast a second glance over at them.

       _Why did Mina really go to Galbadia?  Who is that guy?_

       He stopped caring.

       Without another word, Zell took the bowl up in both hands and began to chug down its contents.

       The waitress, not thinking that Zell would actually do it, dropped the lid but caught it before it hit the ground.  Rishi's eyes widened with excitement.  Zell heard the other onlookers gasp.

       Having emptied the bowl in record time, Zell victoriously set it back down and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

        "How about that?" he gloated, looking at the serveuse.

       She edged away from the table nervously.

       "I'll go get you some green tea," she offered, "but I doubt it will help."

       "Help with what-" Zell began, but was cut short by the burning sensation flaring up inside his mouth.  It felt like Seifer was playing around in there with a flame-thrower, having gone mad.

       Rishi inspected the bottom of the bowl curiously.

       "These look like red pepper seeds," she told him.  "I didn't know you liked hot peppers!"

       Zell couldn't wait around for the green tea.  He desperately needed something to douse the inferno that was working its way down his throat.  Then he remembered the waterhole right outside the Garden gates.

       It would have to do.

       Zell jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process, and ran out of the restaurant.

       If he had forgotten to pay, so be it.

       He could imagine Rishi sobbing about how he didn't even say good-bye.

       _Chump, he thought to himself with a cheesy grin.  To help him vent, he tossed into the shadows a handful of grass that he hadn't realized he had uprooted during his rumination._

       The waterhole had not been a pleasant experience, but it had served its purpose.  Still, one would like to think that an organization as rich wealthy as Garden would have invested in an actual, sanitized reservoir.

       Something was wet…and he was sitting on it.

       Zell regretted shifting from the uncomfortable patch of grass to the damp soil.  A grass stain, at least, was not a liability.  If he went back to Nova Trabia now, the trainees would all think that he dirtied his pants, all on the account of the stupid humus.  No one would believe, and unfortunately for him, Garden was more gossipy than it was mature.

       Zell beat the ground with his fist in frustration.  Why couldn't he be more like Squall?  Squall had everything figured out.  Wearing black pants was ingenious.  A dirt smudge was just one less thing about which to worry.

       He didn't realize that he had been pounding the soil the entire time.  With each blow, the earth sank and the tree beside him swayed by degrees that grew increasingly precarious.  He had mistaken it for a pine, common in these parts, but was made aware of his initial, erroneous assumption when the first of the small dogwood leaves fell and those that followed began to flutter around him in the place of the supposed pine needles.

       He had been similarly unaware that the spot he had been striking was matted with gravel, not grass.  The small jagged edges of crushed rock had lacerated his knuckles, which would have soon been bloody had he not caught himself right then.  One particular puncture had been rather deep, and it stung when Zell pulled the stone chip out of his skin.  The rest of the rocks had been neatly pulverized into fine sand.  Rubbing his knuckles, Zell stifled a grimace from how the minor flesh wound smarted.  Seifer would have laughed at him had he done otherwise, and Squall would have followed Seifer's suit if he knew how to laugh.

       The number of dogwood leaves had been steadily dwindling.  Even if the sporadic breeze had been nonexistent that night, to catch the leaves would still have been challenge.  They swung back and forth with no apparent pattern or timing, swaying as if they were hanging from the end of a confused pendulum.  Additionally the desultory spin on the leaves afforded them the fleeting cover of night, because only so often would any given leaf arch wide enough to catch any of the limited moonlight, peeking through the treetops.  But how they glistened when the moment was just right!  In a word, the entire act was enchanting.

       In the columns of moonlight, each leaf glowed like the vanity of the moon goddess herself.  Now a coruscating curtsy, now a silvery strut, then perhaps a diaphanous dip designed to steal your breath, and just when you least expect it, a frivolous flash by the flip of her naughty dress before she whirls away.  And just like the moon, all attempts of capture would prove fruitless as she always flees before your grasp, but sure enough, the moment you withdraw your hand, so does she reappear, fearing your turning away more than your touch.  Thus did each leaf flicker and flirt, even without Zell reaching for them, and thus did he sit there, enshrouded by the night swirl of blinking eyes, the peacock tail of a twilight.

       Sensing that their dance was almost done, Zell broke the calm and let his arm jet out like a snake's head snaps, stabbing confidently into the darkness.  He left it there and took a moment to savor the feeling of piercing the midnight air.  All good things end quickly, probably because they are so easy to miss.  Most of them were, indeed, hard to catch.

       Feathers.  Now feathers were different; they were easy to catch.  These dogwood leaves, though, were something else.  Clumsy yet graceful, and elusive all in one.  Zell marveled at that.

       _Still, he thought smugly, __nothing can hide forever.  Sooner or later you're bound to be found._

       With that, drew his hand back and slid the pierced dogwood leaf off of his index finger, careful not to tear it.  It was came off like a ring too tight for his tastes, and it felt so much like a white rose petal.  He wondered if it would fit her and then smiled at the thought of giving a flower to flower.

       _Would they even recognize each other?  Or would it be like buying flowers for a flower girl and she would find it tasteless?_

       Something about it caught his eye, and so Zell held the fragile loop under the light and scrutinized the surface.

       Sure enough, it was dappled with cherry stains to which he realized his blood was culprit.  The puncture in his knuckle that he had not thought was that serious had reddened and began to drip down his fingers and onto the leaf, comparable to  throwing strawberries into the fresh winter snow.  Had he ruined the purity or had he made the gift more precious?  Was his adulteration a signature or self-expression that made the white circlet more dear to its future wearer?  Would she cherish it now because he was somehow all about it in essence?

       Zell pocketed his token and made a mental note to give it to Mina first thing the next time he saw her.  That and a thousand hugs and kisses.  Then, without expression, he made a fist and inspected his minor flesh wound.  It was just a scrape, but he was happy that it had happened.  It seemed so familiar, this scratch.  He wondered where he had seen it before.

       His eyes widened at the remembrance.

       He recalled first the delightful shriek she gave when he pulled her into the water with him that one time.  Having reciprocated the favor of completely soaking the other's clothes, he then swam to the ladder and pulled himself up.  He must have brushed his hand against a protruding nail or the edge of a cracked plank in the process.  Neither of them had noticed when he proceeded to help her out of the water, but she saw it later just as he handed her his towel to use.

       Her first reaction was give the same surprised shriek that she had when he pulled her into the water, but the slightest hint of worry had crept audibly into her voice and changed her entire tone enough to break his heart and make him feel ashamed for having distressed her so.  She frantically threw the towel aside and used instead her shirt to clean his hand, after which she kissed and cried over it.  He was so dumbstruck at the time that he could offer her no words of reassurance; rather he tried to comfort her with a hug, and while neither of them dared to break the silence, it was then that he knew she loved him.  She was something special, and in that one second, how blind he had been through each second of his life before that one became suddenly insignificant, because for once, at last, this time, here, he saw it, and he saw it clearly.  As clearly and plainly as he could see her standing before him, he saw how special she was to him.

       Woefully, though, that wall of silence was extended by the group's whisking him away through Time Compression, a phenomenon that he understood no more than he understood her.  Mysteries, rushes, life-altering experiences those two were.  One a maze of the mind, the other a maze of the heart.  Mina was simply a maze to him.  To him, Mina was simply amazing.

       Zell colored, frowning.  Mina was always keeping secrets from him.  He wondered what she refused to tell him that day at the dock*.  Could she have been thinking about this other guy?

          *Raine Ishida (nanaki_17@hotmail.com)

           gives the full account of the incident at

           the dock in "The Library Girl's Secret."

       Zell shook his head in frustration.  But then again, he supposed all women were as secretive and behaved the same way.  It was just another method perfected and practiced to keep guys like him on their toes, pins and needles, the edge, curious, coming back.  To keep things discovered and undiscovered alike – that was their charm, the woman's way.  All of them except Rinoa anyway, who told Squall absolutely everything.

       Zell sighed, and leaned back against a tree.  Squall had it made.  Squall was omniscient about their missions and about women, or his own at least.  Squall did not have a huge wet spot on the back of his jean shorts.  Squall had a girl that always hung around him.

       Zell tapped his forehead agitatedly.

       _No, I forgot.  Rinoa is back in Balamb.  Looks like Squall and I are in the same boat._

       Mina had left him on her own accord, just like Rinoa did Squall on the balcony.  Who were they but two poor schmucks abandoned on the same night?

       Zell jumped to his feet when his ears picked up a faint but distinctly feminine shout coming from his left.

       _Mina?  _Could it…no, wait.  She's in Galbadia.__

       He listened intently to make sure he wasn't hearing things.

       "Merali?" the same cry followed more to the left than he had originally presumed.

       It was hard to place exactly where the sound had come from in so dense a jungle, but he guessed the source was about seventy meters away.  Zell brushed the dirt off of his pants and hurried in what he hoped was the right direction.  One two, one two.

       "Merali, was that you?" the female voice rang again.

       The night, two miles away from the Garden lights, was not a good companion to loudmouths.  Zell, recognizing the unnecessary danger that the girl was soliciting, picked up the pace.  One two three, one two three.

       "Merali, you'd better get your cute ass out here now!" she shouted next.

       She was not too far now.  It was a race between him and whichever hungry nocturnal creature happened to be in the area.  If he got there too late, she wouldn't have a head with which to shout.  One two three, one two three.

       "I don't care how smooth it is, I'm going to kick it back to last Friday if you don't show yourself!" the mystery girl threatened, still oblivious to how she was putting her life in jeopardy.

       It would not be too long now.  He could not see her yet, but he could almost sense her standing right beyond the next row of trees.  Was it his imagination or did the brushes a few meters away stir?  He thought he caught the shadow of something other than him moving in her direction.  One two three, one two three.

       "Hit a tree with a stick or something, or bat a rock in this direction, just give me some sign to let me know where you are!" the girl called out.

       Zell's blood chilled when he heard a faint rumble and saw a serpent-like tail disappear behind a tree trunk a short distance away.  Branches snapped and the grounded leaves rustled.  One two three four, one two three four.

       The woman must have heard it too because she hesitated before murmuring shakily, "Merali?"

       _Run! Zell wanted to tell her.  He was having a hard time keeping up with the still unidentified monster, so he hoped desperately that she was parked in a clearing and would head into the woods when she saw it coming.  He would be hard-pressed to reach her before it did.  One two three four, one two three four._

       _Must go faster, he commanded himself._

       No sooner did he think that before thundered through the neighboring foliage.  It was of the hair-stiffening, skin-prickling, muscle-tensing, blood-freezing, bone-jarring, ear-splitting, heart-stopping type that Zell recognized on reflex, having endured various battles in the field and Quistis' relentless language lab tape drills, belonged to a Blue Dragon.  It was either that or an inebriated Wendigo trying to mate with Bahamut.  Zell went with the more probable and less ugly theory.

       Both the squawking of birds overhead and the regularly returned echoes indicated to Zell that the cry of the beast was steadily radiating outwards into the rest of the forest.  He could almost see the mechanical sound waves physically ripple through the dense niches and stir up the wildlife.  The indigenous animal population was clearing out like a pack of rodents fleeing from a raging forest fire.

       In the next instant Zell saw a slender figure standing by herself a little ways off.  He felt a wave of joy wash over him, realizing that she was almost within his grasp.  The subsequent wave that hit him was the fourth echo of the monster's first bellow, driving him into a sea of fear.  It stemmed from the fact that the serpent was leading him by a few strides and from the doubt he had in his mind about whether or not he could outrun a beast in frenzy.  If there had been a longer distance to cover and if the monster's dinner was not immediately in sight, Zell would have bet a full month's worth of wages on himself.  As it was, the odds favored the ten-ton snake with wings.

       _I am supersonic._

       One two three four five six, one two three four five six.

       Hearing the roar and feeling the boom, the girl had spun around in alarm.  The look on her face was distinctly the same as that which one puts on right before she screams.  Zell knew that her screaming would be a very bad idea because it would surely attract any creatures hungry enough to take their chances with the dragon and tarry in the vicinity after hearing its sound.

       If only he had longer legs.  If only he were not so unlucky.  If only he were not such a damned good Samaritan.  The ideal cool-headed SeeD like Squall would not have lifted a finger until he saw a notarized contract with the Headmaster's official stamp on it.  They were mercenaries, and the only thing that sustained this way of life – the way of the gun – was cold cash.  Theirs was a crude world, moralistically acknowledging only black and white, materialistically recognizing only green and red – credits were the currency and blood was the object to be bartered.  It was as simple as that, unless a SeeD fell for a client, or a client happened to be the sorceress whose life the SeeDs had a hidden agenda to take.  In simple Squall's case, the clients from each of the two extreme cases happened to be the same person, and that would make things difficult.

       The dragon was practically on top of her.  They had come to the end of the track.  It was now or never.  One two three, one two-

       _I wonder if I can wheedle some hazard pay out of Cid for this, Zell reflected as he dove towards the girl, her glittering hair slung over her shoulder and her pink mouth parted for what Zell feared would be a scream that would certainly doom them even if they made it past the Blue Dragon.  A frantic girl made a perfect after-supper snack, scrumptious enough to lure out the hard-hitting contenders that were at first reluctant to fight the Blue Dragon for her, or even worse, a bigger creature like the Red Dragon._

       As Zell shuddered at the thought, he was reminded of the only other time in his life when he was stressed enough to have to involuntarily shudder in midair.  It happened during his boss fight with Ifrit on his trial run to Fire Cavern to qualify as a SeeD candidate.  While he was dodging a fireball, Quistis told him to stop fooling around because the exam was being timed.  It galled him that she did not mention that crucial fact when they entered the cavern.  She later explained that she was trying to keep him relaxed.  He secretly believed that Instructor Trepe deliberately forgot to mention the time restriction, her purpose being to induce that very reaction from him while he was sailing through the air.  Shuddering before touchdown basically rules out a soft landing, and he couldn't very well see Quistis' look of satisfaction with a job well done while his face was in the dirt.  On top of that, he nearly tripped up again when she told him that he could not keep Ifrit after he had already won the GF.  Apparently one other student had yet to make the Fire Cavern run, and so, by her flawless reasoning, Zell was to give up his rightful reward because some runt had slacked off.  Zell could not wait to get his hands on the punk that deprived him of his GF.  As soon as he found out who the last candidate was, that kid was going to pay.

       Zell ground his teeth together.  Quistis was definitely out to get him.  He would have to watch his step around her.  Zell then took a millisecond to wonder what Quistis had said to Squall to "relax" him.  Whatever she said, it was probably ineffectual.  Knowing how cold-blooded Squall was, nothing short of a blow to the head could relax him, either because Squall was perpetually relaxed or perpetually high-strung.  Perhaps he was constantly both.  A true paradox Squall was.

       The entire forest seemed to fade into the blurred obscurity as he neared the mystery girl.  All he saw was her, and she stood alone against the darkness, the single, illuminated focal point of his current efforts.  His eyes found her moon-silver flood of hair frozen about her neck, around which a rosy ribbon fluttered with each falter from her pale pink lips.  Now, just a few inches from her ivory face, Zell wondered why he had gotten this close to her without the dragon interfering.  It could have long since swallowed the girl and batted him away with its claws.

       Momentarily drawing his attention away from the girl, Zell could hear the beast's frustration, its straining, its ferocious roars, its clawed feet tearing up the ground and throwing forth a froth of dust.  He could also hear the nearby trees uprooting, the vines snapping, the branches cracking, the trunks splintering, and the leaves rustling with a hollow howl as harrowing as that emanating from the dragon's throat itself.

       _It's caught! Zell realized gleefully, for indeed the enemy's neck and jaws were tangled in web of shoots and greenery between the last of the trees, a space that it had mistaken for being empty and would provide no impediment between it and its meal._

       With newly infused relief circulating in his system, Zell felt as if he were ready to take on the world.  This new development would afford him time, not much, but enough to make the situation seem hopeful, and perhaps enough time, even, for a vainglorious war hoot.

       Zell quickly decided against the war hoot.  Squall would have done nothing of the sort.  Short of thirty Tiamats, Zell did not know of anything that could induce his suitemate to even flinch.  Even when the possessed Edea threw an ice popsicle through Squall's shoulder during the parade, Mr. Invalid himself had only raised an eyebrow.  Cool as ice, the Commander was.  Aloof, disinterested, cold-blooded, callous, almost inhuman.

       _Well, now that I think about it more-_

       Zell reconsidered his original estimation of the blow to the head as a surefire way to tranquilize Squall beyond his usual imperturbability.  This new insight was spurred by Zell's recollection that Squall always seemed tense whenever he was unconscious.  Zell suspected that Squall had nightmares every night, because every time he snuck into Squall's room to copy homework while the latter was asleep, Squall would kick and turn over restlessly.  His actions during his unconsciousness betrayed the internal turmoil he hid from the rest of the world during his consciousness.  In light of this evidence, it would be justified for Zell to assume that Squall was perpetually high-strung.

       Maybe that was what was getting on Rinoa's nerves, Squall's kicking in his sleep, and not Zell's barging in on the two of them on the balcony.  How embarrassing!

       _I am such a chump! Zell scolded himself, just as he felt his fingers connect with skin and cloth.  She tensed at his touch._

       The monster lurched back and forth, pushing its scaly head forward, kicking, screaming, and batting at them with its angry claws.  The lightning-quick swipes narrowly missed Zell as he slammed into the woman.  She smelled like daisies after a light sprinkle, or was he hallucinating about Mina again?

       The last vine groaned and gave way, snapping apart and in agony.  In no time at all, the massive jaws of the carnivore descended upon the two.  Had Zell looked up, his eyes would have been as white and round as dinner plates.

       That is to say, had Zell stalled, he would have been eaten.  Yet, the serpentine jaws slammed into the ground, the grotesque teeth sinking into nothing other than the earth's soft soil.  The split-second during which the dragon was hampered by the creeper tree's tendrils had afforded Zell just enough time to tackle the maiden to the ground and roll out of harm's way with her in his arms.  He was not willing to place a bet on how grateful she was going to be for knocking the wind out of her in what looked like an overly exuberant, desperate, and mindless attempt to cop a feel through the blue-and-pink-striped tank-top, but he could say with near certainty that if they both lived through the Blue Dragon, he would have another enemy to deal with.

       _Or another enemy to run from, Zell admitted to himself when indeed he felt something that he had not meant to feel.  His face contorted awkwardly, unable to reconcile how to simultaneously blush in embarrassment and pale with dread._

       The Blue Dragon spared him of his dilemma.  Having tasted with his last strike more grit than blood, all of which had been spilled from his own tongue, the beast lifted its jaws in fury.  Its raging eyes screamed bloody vengeance, and it leveled its sights menacingly on Zell as the frantic SeeD scrambled to lift his companion to her feet.  The dragon snarled, nostrils flaring, opened its mouth, and let out a burst of flame.  The wild, red tongues reached out to Zell who was completely dumbfounded.

       _Since when do Blue Dragons breathe fire? the thought ran through his head a mere stride quicker than the blaze ran through the air towards its target.  Zell found himself back on panic's porch, rapping on its weary door._

       _Mina, what do I do?_

       He was a mercenary, not a bodyguard; he did not have the proper training that the situation called for.  By all rights he should have rolled out of the way even before the dragon let loose its fiery breath, but it seemed morally wrong to move or duck out of the way after gesturing to the girl to stay behind him.

       Still, the days of morality having passed, would he really be condemned for saving his own skin?  Probably not, but the lack of penalization did not make it right.

       _"The crime does not make the criminal; the police cameras do," he remembered Irvine's maxim.  It was the same line Irvine used constantly to excuse himself and turn the argument on anyone who would accuse him of philandering.  Evidently the cowboy still considered himself to be pure in heart and immaculate in conscience because he had never been caught diddling anyone, diddle as he might.  Innocent until proven guilty.  Pristine till shown to be otherwise._

       By the same shaky reasoning, with no one to condemn him, Zell could have easily slipped into the forest and let the girl fend for herself with no one being the wiser.  And he would have done it too had Irvine been the ultimate authority on honor.  Being as Irvine was a sneaky, womanizing sniper, though, Zell decided to do the exact opposite of what Irvine's code called for.  He would hold his ground until she was safe.  If he didn't, then he did not deserve to court Mina.  If she had been in this girl's place, would he have even hesitated?

       He wasn't sure, and he sure as Eden did not want to leave it as an uncertainty.  He had to know.  If he could save the girl now, then he would surely save Mina later.  If he selfishly chose the path of cowardice and ran, even if he could side-step the guilt of having sacrificed the life of an innocent for his own no-good existence, he would be able to escape neither the self-doubt about his worth as a warrior, nor the inquietude from knowing that his girlfriend deserved a better, worthier man and that he was depriving her of this other person.  Both the doubt and the inquietude would plague him incessantly and catch up with him eventually.  In essence, Mina was the girl, and the girl was Mina.  It was all one big test.  True or false?

       _What's it gonna be, Zell? he could imagine Cid asking.  __What's your answer?_

       _Don't you mean what am I, and not what my answer is? he heard his voice resonate in his head._

       _Are you true or false, Zell? Cid would have rephrased it._

       Zell wished desperately that it had been an ordinary SeeD test.  This time, though, Squall's answers weren't handy and if he cheated, he would not only be cheating himself; he would be cheating her too.  How could he have her suffer that?  She did not deserve that.

       Zell was quickly realizing that his predicament had become too serious to be a game.  Relationships seldom were, and life-threatening situations even less frequent.

       He felt so unworthy.  He had to be, for why else would he be debating about making a choice that ought to have been so immensely obvious had he been worthy.

       _I am so unworthy, he confessed to himself._

       _You are! his inner voice agreed._

       _I am, he repeated hollowly, not fully believing that he was giving up without a fight._

       _You better believe it, the voice replied._

       She was obviously too good for him.

       _She is too good, Zell conceived._

_       She is!_

       _At last we agree, Zell realized sadly._

       _Chump._

       Zell saw the snide comment coming so it did not ruffle him half as much.  It was not like he had any pride left to lose.  To care about pride was silly; he was a guy and that was how guys were built.  It served him right to fall for a goddess trapped in a mortal body.

       Time was speeding up again.  He was back in the forest and could feel the heat wave heading towards him.  The moment of truth had arrived.  He could dally in his thoughts no further without getting hurt by the incoming burst of flames.

       Zell looked at the girl sadly.

       _Forgive me, Mina._

       Zell pushed the girl away, immediately after which he landed a quick kick on her rear, propelling each of them in opposite directions.  Even as he spiraled away, though, he could feel part of the blast wash over him.

       The girl cried out in pain when Zell booted her into the bushes, and from the way she was groaning, he guessed that her landing had been hard one.  In a more graceful display, Zell rolled smoothly back onto one knee upon landing and brushed out the small patches on his socks that were burning.

       Having dispelled the danger that required his immediate attention, he raised his head and yelled out to the girl, "Run!"

       She rose to her feet slowly, wincing from the pain that he had inflicted, looked at him dubiously for a second, but then quitted her hesitation and soon, carrying out his instruction, the battlefield itself.

       After noting her departure, he spared a glance back down to his feet.  The sides of his sneakers were seared, and the soles were partially melted into a gummy mess.  Had they been an old pair of running shoes, he might have been inconsolable over the loss of so comfortable and familiar a relationship.  Being as they were practically brand new, he was more irked than upset that he had been gypped of a full three months of perfectly workable performance.  The limited edition footwear had been imported at his request from Galbadia, offered the maximum traction for optimal handling without compromising speed, was cushioned to adapt to the shape of each foot, and promised to push the athlete's abilities to their peak.  It was also signed by the great Mr. Jammy himself-

       _What reeks? he wondered and covered his nose._

       He could no longer ignore the awful odor that seemed to cling to his body, and took in a big whiff in hopes of finding the source.  Struggling not to hurl, he presumed that the irritating smell climbing up into his nose was from the vapor streaming from his legs.  Upon inspection, he saw that all of his precious hair in that area had been seared off.  The corollary sentiment of despair was quickly replaced by that of indignation.

       Zell rubbed his singed calves furiously, deciding that he had a major problem with barbecued Zell legs being on the menu without his explicit written permission.  If he and Mr. Toasty were going to have themselves a problem, then it was his job to make sure that by the end of the fight, it was all the latter's problem.

       "Forget the buffalo," Zell hissed indignantly, "I want fried dragon wings tonight."

       Zell cracked his knuckles through his Ehrgeiz gauntlets and repeated the action on his other hand.  Someone owed him some fancy running gear, and that someone was going to pay.

       "You have three seconds to apologize to me in English before I kick your green-tailed ass!" he shouted at the creature, flagging it off in the process.

       In response, the Blue Dragon roared cacophonously and whipped its aquamarine tail around, leveling three good-sized trees in the process.  Zell somersaulted at just the right time so that when his body was inverted at the peak of the flip, by extending his right hand, he was able to plant his palm on the killer tail and catapult over it as it sped by.  Still in flight, he grabbed a projecting branch and swung himself up to a higher perch.  There he settled quietly in the shelter of the shadows yielded by the foliage.  He peered through the green mesh and spied his enemy wheeling back around to face the clearing.  The price of the surprise spin-move had been the forfeiture of Zell from its line of sight for a split-second, and now it could not reacquire its target.  Zell watched the reptilian fiend scan the environs, its bulgy eyes rotating, oozing, slowly through a full revolution on each side of its ghastly jaws.  It let out a few hit-or-miss spurts of fire to test any possible hiding spots in the proximity.  On all four feet now, with its tail swaying opposite of its massive head for counterbalancing purposes, it seemed more and more like a Red Dragon to Zell.  For one thing, it behaved more like its fearsome cousin than the normal lot of Blue Dragons that he had fought before.

       It flicked its tongue over the gleaming set of daggers inside its mouth, then moved forward to cover more ground, slowly at first, but soon picked up speed as its hind legs stirred to life.  Craw strafing and eyes snaking, it raked the area for Zell's corpse with surprising speed and systematicity, obviously not the geezer with loose screws that Zell hoped it would be.  He could see the outline of the dragon's veins protruding out from under the moon-glazed scales, the haunch muscles tightening, filling and stretching the skin, the ground groaning under the weight of each of its steps, the crusted nails digging into the flesh of the earth.

       Zell actually felt sorry for the dirt that had been trodden underfoot.  Eyeing the beast's spacious, pothole-like footprints, he stiffened at his guess about how unpleasant it would feel to be trapped under and crushed by the gigantic paw of that walking trash compactor.

       Zell nearly jumped out of his skin when he thought he saw the monster's jaundiced eyes widen, presumably from having sensed his initial alarm or smelled the fear pouring from his pores.  The drops of sweat gathering on his brow and lining his arms hollered and hooted up a ruckus, waving madly to grab the beast's attention, inviting the disclosure of Zell's location.  He was so going to punish them by showering the living daylights out of them when he got back, if he got back, tonight, but for now, he lamented that he had not the foresight to wear an airtight, full-body suit instead of his trademark shorts, shirt, and jean jacket for this evening jog.

       It was a jog that promised to be more costly than an everyday workout.  Whoever coined the phrase, "No pain no gain," had obviously never run across a Blue Dragon in the weight room.  Another look at the demonstration of compressive powers honed by the creature gave Zell a whole new perspective on "doing crunches" in the Nova Trabia Garden Gymnasium.

       Seeing how the dragon was torching everything in sight and stomping around, Zell decided that if he did not live to sign back in at the front gate, it would not take a genius to figure out what had happened to him when they stumbled upon his remains the following morning.  He reckoned that with their combined astuteness, the search party, investigation committee, and intelligence team had a fair chance of arriving at the right conclusion, then.  After all, it was common knowledge to even the second-class Garden trainees that every criminal made at least ten mistakes and left the investigators at least ten clues as to his identity.  Judging, though, from the way it was trumpeting its attendance to all the world with its thunderous snarls, the Blue Dragon did not seem to fear being caught and indicted by the locals.

       The monster drew near.  Zell, having breached the threshold of anxiety for quite so time now, was figuratively pissing in his pants, expending every last effort not to do it literally.

       _What would Squall do in this situation? he racked his brains for an answer frantically._

       The only response that turned up from his query was a sarcastic _Well, for starters, his pants would not be wet._

       But Zell was over that already.  He was above it.  Beyond it.  He was Zell.  He didn't have to be Squall, not if he didn't want to be, at least.  He could handle everything just fine on his own.

       But he sure wished Squall were around.  Squall would know what to do.  It was impossible to lose with Squall leading the team.

       No sooner did the thought cross his mind that Mina's face flash against the screen of leaves before him.  He gasped and reached out to touch her, but the mirage had already vanished in a flicker.  The only part of her that lingered – her frown of disapproval – did so in his memory.  The image jabbed into his heart and ran it through, forcing him to pull back, fingers shaking, like he had cut himself on accident while wiping his mother's kitchen knife in the sink.

       He was always telling Mina to be braver.  It was her turn to tell him to be brave.  _That_ was the message he read from her disappointed eyes.

       _Chump._

       Tough as it was for Zell to admit, she was not wrong to think that.  The verdict itself might have been wrong, but he could not blame her for making that judgment based on the lousy evidence he had presented to her.  Every action or thought he had carried out in the past hour could qualify, at best, as misleading if not downright contrary to what he wanted to prove of himself.  Even now, fear held him by the reins, riding down on him hard as he knew the Blue Dragon would if he did not get his act together.  It was the same fear that ruled over Mina, the same that he constantly urged her to overcome.  It was ironic that he was no one to coach her on how to conquer their common nemesis when it came to the crucial moment.

       Terror furnished effective shackles on one's will.  Now, with it being inches from his face, this principle was illuminated.  Never before did he sympathize with the need for solitude that her shyness of spirit dictated.  It used to bother him that she would rather dance with the cover of night* than with him, to practice under it than before his eyes.  Now, though, freezing up in the face of fear did not seem all that absurd.  She would rather dance alone than face her demons under the silent moon, but he could save her and redeem himself.  This was his chance to take her turn for her, to assume the dance with the devil and beat it once and for all.  She did not have to be afraid anymore, if he could endure enough fear for the both of them.

       The devil drew near.  Darker became the black pitch of night.

          *Raine Ishida (nanaki_17@hotmail.com)

           gives the full account of Mina's late-night

           dancing in "The Library Girl's Secret."

       The dragon's nostrils moved up and down as if it were sniffing the air once more to confirm the direction from which Zell's scent was the strongest.  Maybe it really could smell him.  This would be an interesting complaint to raise to the Garden Personal Services Committee about the Garden-issued soap.

       The creature's muscles tensed when it was sure that it had found its prey.  Its sharp intake of air and equally hurried exhalation was an indication for Zell to make his exit.  The quickness of breath signaled that a strike was underway.  Sure enough, the swaying tail had grown still, and Zell guessed that once it snapped to life, he would not be able to see it again until it was on him.

       Zell quickly grabbed a thick branch, pulled it back with one hand, and broke it from the tree trunk with the elbow of his other hand.  Once freed from the tree and resting in his arms, the small log felt much heavier than it had previously looked, as he had anticipated.  His only worry was whether or not it had enough weight to pull off what he intended to do next.

       The still tail disappeared from view, its initial explosion into motion too quickly for the eye to follow.  It would cover a wide arc around the dragon's left side, picking up speed and whistling like the devil.  Zell threw the log outwards, jounced the limb to pull more height, and jumped into the clearing after it.

       _I am a falcon.___

       Zell spiraled into the air, catching glimpses of smashed tree in whose composition he would have taken part had he lifted off a second later.  The fallen, splintered mass wept over its ruin, and Zell might have followed in suit had he nothing else to worry about.  However, the apprehension of the dragon rearing its head up and launching a breath of fire afforded him no such worry-free luxury.  Somewhere in the shadows of the past, Mina danced along side of him, matching him revolution for revolution with her own triple-axle.

       Zell mumbled a curse when he saw the dragon's eyes follow his movements.  He was banking on the possibility that it would lose track of him among the flying debris.  Now he had to pray that his invented calculation with the wooden log would work out when tested in real life.  He wished that he could have tried this out in the Garden Computer-Simulated Battle Program multiple times to tweak out any mistakes instead of being forced to give this one unrehearsed, impromptu performance that actually carried more consequence than hitting the restart button.  But "there was nothing better than imminent death to ward against complacency," Quistis had lectured in class once.  Zell, traditional antagonist of the "survival of the fittest" precept and proponent of the "survival of the most well prepared," found something morally wrong with her line of reasoning.

       _I am an eagle._

       After reciting a quick prayer, Zell reached out to catch the chunk of wood that he had initially thrown above him but had now begun its parabolic descent.  Still on his way up, Zell found his target out of reach, but quickly turned his horizontal, streamline position into a front flip by deliberately overarching, shifting his center of gravity back, destabilizing his own equilibrium, increasing his vertical moment, and consequentially tipping forwards, both feet over his head.  After pulling out of this somersault at the peak of his jump, his feet settled perfectly on the topside of the wooden board.  Mina shadowed him on the ground far below, her pirouette completely synchronized with Zell's own acrobatics.  "Ride it in," she motioned to him in a language of pure feeling beyond the capacity of words to describe.

       Zell took his breath and held it as he dropped into the dragon's air space.  Even though he was directly on top of it and could not see what it was doing because of the board in between them, Zell could imagine the beast sitting up onto its hind legs, straightening out, lifting its head back, opening its jaws, and letting loose a fearsome inferno.  All he had to do now was sit tight, ram the log straight into the creature's gapping mouth, lodge it deeper into the throat, and hope for the best.

       Once he felt the flames fanning out around him, he was both relieved and vexed that his estimation of the dragon's movements was flawless; the beast had indeed titled its head back and spewed forth a jet spray of fire, into which Zell was now falling.  Seated in a one-way convey into hell qualified as the last place Zell wanted to be.

       At the same time, though, he knew that jumping off the convoy was the last thing he wanted to do.  He had seen Seifer scrimmaging with Squall the day before the SeeD exam and remembered how the initial blast from Seifer's Fire Cross had knocked Squall down.  It would have been worse had Squall's gun-blade not taken the brunt of the flame-burst, splitting the explosion down the center.  Still, the two severed halves of the flames curled back around the blade, diffracting outwards to hit, with one combined force, Squall whose surface area was too large for hide behind the blind zone created by the deflection.  Zell reasoned that it would be similarly disastrous for him to attempt to jump off and leave the protection that the log provided.  Should he do so, he would surely find himself engulfed by the column that formed a deadly canopy above him.  He decided to kneel down into a tight tuck, as close to the pseudo-shield of a board as he could, and wait for his next move.

       As he fell deeper into the inferno, he gritted his teeth and held on despite the sun-colored tendrils that climbed over the edges, threatening to char him beyond recognition.  The sensation he felt resembled that of an accelerated tan, one where he could personally witness the color change of his skin, if his irises did not burn off first.  Whether his epidermis would peel or not was not the question; the question was whether it would be pink or black.  Without prompt Curaga-ing and timely relief from this aerial oven, he would to die.  His instinct told him that without need of confirmation from any additional mathematical calculation.

       Suddenly he felt the board shake, as if it landed on something hard, and the flames overhead withered away.  Even before the dragon emitted a multitude of choking howls tinted with surprises, frustration, and anger, Zell knew that standing at the doorway of death, the doorway, humorously enough, of digestion.  He had successfully navigated the log into the creature's mouth, which was the last thing his adversary expected.  Within seconds though, the juggernaut would regain its composure and crush the wooden mass with the brute force of its jaws.

       _I am a buzzard._

       There was no hesitation before Zell struck the log with both fists and jammed it into the fleshy part in the depths of the gigantic throat.  He could vicariously feel the sharp edges and protrusions sinking into the soft tissues of the beast under him as clearly as he could feel being thrown up into the air and out of the animal's jaws in reality when it bucked up and tossed its head back in pain.

       Zell tucked his knees against his chest and maneuvered himself through three full rotations before he felt himself beginning the descent.  The dragon was still twisting its body and flaying about in agony as Zell straightened out and timed his next sequence of attacks and aerial stunts.  As he drew near to the dragon's head, he checked to his side to see if Mina was still with him.  Her essence was there, even if her person was not.  

       Relieved and encouraged, Zell let himself fall a bit further, just past the dragon's head, before reaching out and catching the left horn and swinging himself forward, transforming his vertical displacement into horizontal translation.  This thrust moved him below and across the dragon's chin where he landed a heavy blow from his knee and another from his elbow to the creature's exposed neck.  He was moving quickly enough to throw himself back up and over the other side of the dragon's head by grabbing the outer rim of its chin and switching the direction of his momentum.  Sliding along the slimy skin, Zell vaulted over the nostrils, kicked in the dragon's right eye in passing, and somersaulted back to its left side, pulling his body into a precarious horizontal orientation parallel to the ground.

       _I am your worst nightmare._

       The trick was to kick the dragon as many times on the way down without shifting too much of his weight to his legs.  If his center of gravity moved to his lower body, his head and torso would tilt downwards and he would land headfirst.  What he needed to do now was to kick quickly, keep his body from rotating, land on his hand without breaking it, and flip back onto his feet.  The speed with which the hand-flip was to be performed was crucial because the beast would surely topple over after the assault, and Zell was neither overweight nor desperate enough to rely on a falling wall of bricks to make himself look and feel thinner.

       Zell eyed the spots he was to assail in the few seconds he had before he hit the ground.  Everything was moving so fast that it looked like the dragon was jumping and he was standing still as opposed to him falling and the dragon being static.  The overall effect was the dragon zooming by and he struggled to kick whichever places he could clearly mark with both eyes, switching between his right and left legs.

       Neck._  Kick.  __Falling._

       Shoulder._  Kick.  __Falling._

       Armpit._  Kick.  __Falling._

       Midsection.

       _Kick._

       _Kick._

       _Kick._

       Hip.  _Kick_.  _Falling_.

       Knee.  _Kick_._  Falling._

       Shin.  _Kick_._  Falling._

       _Stop!  Land!_

       _Hand._

       Zell's arm shot out to cushion his fall.  He did not stiffen his arm the second he planted it because he needed an arm's length of time to build up enough normal force to neutralize his negative velocity.  It was also the only way to keep his arm from breaking under his weight and speed.  Zell slowly exhaled as he slowed to a stop, drops of sweat slipping from his forehead and down around the curve of his cheek.  His tense arm convulsed spasmodically, straining to keep the rest of his body balanced.  The initial danger was over, but if he tipped over on his hand now, he would risk crushing his wrist with his bodyweight, pulling the tendons from his digits to his palm, and dislocating a finger or two.  Meanwhile, the Blue Dragon, already stunned from the blows to its head and off balance from the kicks in the midsection, was in the process of bowling over.  Its wobbly collapse was expedited somewhat unpropitiously by Zell taking its legs out from under it.

       With only seconds before the mountain of reptilian muscle toppled on him, Zell, well aware of Garden's inept medical plan and unwilling to be an accomplice to Dr. Kadowaki's fiscal burgeoning, summoned the last bit of his reserve energy to push himself off the ground before either his hand crumpled under him or he crumpled under the beast.  After a crisp, back-bending flip and the extension of his arms to increase his moment of inertia that forced him decelerate, Zell floated neatly back onto his feet, just in time to witness the carnivorous hunk of mass slam into the ground where he would have padded it had he not moved away with punctuality.  He marveled wide-eyed at the ring of sand thrown up during the collision, and stared as each grain sagged sorrowfully back down to the ground, gasping for air but unable to escape the claws of gravity.  Zell let out his own sigh of relief, realizing that he had better luck than the upturned sod and had escaped with his life.

       'haxuoCl'.

       The naïve sigh was retracted, and Zell suffered an involuntary gasp in its stead.  _No way!_

       'haxuoCl'.

       With the enemy lying cowed on its side, Zell stepped forward for a closer look.

       It was no mistake.

       He felt a chill permeate just under his skin through his entire body.  He had seen that marking on the horn-impaired goat that had booted him off of the roost.  This time, though, the cryptic word was carved on a thin copper plate whose edges had been run through the skin on the monster's back.  Zell reached out to touch the plate and confirm its composition, careful to watch the back of the dragon's head for any movement.  The monotonous panting sounds coupled with the rising and falling of the creature's rib cage allayed Zell's wariness.

       He guessed off the top of his head that sticking the plate into one's flesh would have hurt as much as branding the word onto the skin.  Either way, he was stuck with the puzzle of figuring out what the word meant and who had placed it there.  He would have to tell someone about it, but whom?  Squall would tell him to write a report and Quistis would have told him to proofread it.  Zell considered telling Irvine.

       Having let down his guard, he did not catch the movement of the dragon's notorious tail out of the corner of his eye.  It had curled back when he approached to study the incoherent marking and he was not agile enough to dodge it when it swung forwards and caught him across the ribs, sending him flying through the air until he was stopped abruptly by an uncomfortable tree trunk.  He fell facedown to the ground like a crumpled rag, wondering if the collision had broken any part of his backbone, and if so, how many.

       _Get up._

       "I can't," he hissed through his teeth, still wrestling with the pain.

       _Get up, fool, his will repeated more forcefully._

       "It hurts," Zell whined, his fingers turning white from clenching his fists so tightly.

       _Get up before you get eaten, bozo._

       "I can't move," he moaned.

       _Chump._

       Zell picked himself up and raised his knuckles weakly, reassuming his battle stance.  To his infinite mirth, the dragon was already lumbering away back to its nest.  It had suffered its own set of casualties and had no desire to wait around for other carnivores to stumble upon them and overpower it.  Apparently even a mangled Zell for dinner was not worth the extra time and fight.

       The Blue Dragon's snubbing was a devastating blow to Zell's self-esteem.  He would have protested had he felt up to task of substantiating that protest.  Frankly, though, all he wanted right then was a x-ray machine, some Hi-Potions, and Mina.  Had he any GFs junctioned to him, Zell could have cast Curaga on himself.  As dismal luck would have it, he had to scrounge around on his knees for some M-Stones pieces or Magic Stones and make do with Cures and Curas.  Wizard Stones to be refined into Curagas were particularly rare, and fate was behaved stingily when it came to distributing them to battle-weary SeeDs.  Even if he found the stones, though, without the benefit of GF-refining abilities – particularly Siren's Life Magic Refining – he would have to grind it into powder manually and ingest that in order to produce the same healing effect.

       Zell flopped down, exhausted.  Sprawled on the ground and staring into space, he felt his mind wander immediately to the memory of the last date he and Mina had before he had to undergo Time Compression.  How nice it had been then in Balamb, purely a spur of the moment get-together that he drove her to enduring at an ungodly hour for his own selfish reasons.  At half past midnight he had taken her for a walk along the dock.  The reason why he did not take to a movie and buy her dinner earlier that evening was because he did not save enough Gil from his last paycheck, but she never minded his financial precariousness much.  If the boardwalk had suddenly cost money to walk on, he would have just walked her back to Balamb Garden and toured the library in the great tradition of urbane romance.

       She seemed so sullen at the time that he had been forced to ask if there was anything wrong and why she was not speaking.

       "I'm laconic when I should be comatose," she announced with a yawn.

       Dry humor was never her forte, and Zell sifted out the true cause of depression from her words.

       "It's about Trabia, isn't it?" he asked, guessing that the latest piece of news regarding the commercial decisions in post-bombing Trabia had just reached her ears.

       She nodded without looking up.  After walking another few steps, she suddenly moved closer and borrowed his arm.  Her cheek claimed his shoulder, her fingers his hand, and he disappeared into her wounded splendor.

       He could not fathom how she must have felt when she got wind of the latest statement by Trabia's insanely selective Angel Dance School* about their decision to put off admitting any new students for the year on account of the population loss and woebegone mood inspired by the destruction of the township and its neighboring Garden.  It had been a longtime fantasy of hers to get accepted into the elite dance academy, and she had practiced her heart out for the then upcoming auditions, but now that glimmer of a dream had snuffed out.  It pained him beyond words he could express that the unfortunate announcement could have also put out the fire within her that he loved more than he loved himself.  He would die before telling her that, though.

          *Raine Ishida (nanaki_17@hotmail.com)

           gives the full account of the Trabia's 

           Angel Dance School in "Hope."

       "I'm sure things will return to normal once they start rebuilding Trabia Garden and the locality," he lied, not really sure at all.

       She faked a smile to be unselfish and to lead him to believe that he had indeed fooled her like any decent boyfriend would have tried to do, but he saw through her ruse too.

       "You have a real chance," he insisted.  "Don't throw it all away on account of their decision for the hiatus, which, by the way, has nothing to do with you."

       She heard him without really listening to what he had to say, and nodded in feigned recognition.  After a moment of silence, both persons asked the other simultaneously, "Why do you like me?"

       Mina looked at him in surprise and giggled for the first time that day.

       "Never mind," she told him, pulling on his hand, "just answer this one thing for me."

       "What?" Zell asked, lifting an eyebrow.

       "Why is the blush of the beach at midnight blue?" she posed abruptly after looking up and studying the umbrella of twilight.

       "Yes, I know that one!" Zell shouted with artificial excitement and alacrity just as she finished.  He also snapped his fingers and did a little jig in the process.

       "No, really, silly," she replied in a stern tone he had no reason to expect, "I want an answer."

       "Why do you want to know?" he inquired suspiciously.

       "'Cause I just do; I'm a girl," she whined, shaking his arm.  "Humor me."

       Zell hesitated, debating whether or not the excuse she had given him would have been valid in a court of law.

       "Pretty please?" Mina tried.  "Just think about it."

       Zell sighed and shrugged.

       "You know this has nothing to do with what we were just talking about, right?" he asked, seeking her confirmation.

       Mina winked and answered, "It does and it doesn't."

       "Glad we got that cleared up," Zell retorted, rolling his eyes.

       She bit fiercely into his shoulder at a grade hard enough to leave marks on the skin under his vest.

       Zell began to yelp but caught himself.  So long as she was there, he should not complain.  He looked over and stared into her soft eyes, treasuring the brutal nibbling for what he knew it meant – a release of her frustration for the dance academy projected onto him.  The thought of making her happier made him smile.  He leaned forward to kiss her.

       When her eyes drifted upwards and she saw him looking at her, she paused, realizing that he was not offended and that he was not going to fight her.  Upon feeling her cheeks flush, she released him and quickly turned away before he got any closer.

       At that moment, more than anything else, he longed to find the brightest flower and place it in her hair.  But then he wanted so many things – small things that somehow meant so much to him – things like her squinting and cry of surprise when he flicked water in her face while they sat on the dock behind his house*, or the feel of her hand when she'd let him hold it in the quad, or the slight bounce of her hair at sunset, however she chose to wear it, or her fragrance that he could never dismiss when she managed to sneak up from behind him and throw her arms around him, or the look of joy on her face whenever she was on the old swing, or how she would belt him when he teased her.  He'd give up just about anything to have her punch him in the stomach now, just so he could feel her touch and be in her presence.  It never hurt because she was always half-playful, but just to get hit was heavenly.  He wondered what he did to deserve having her little pearls sink into his shoulder.  He must have done something right to receive so paramount a reward.  Why else would he be standing so close to heaven?  It seemed completely irrational.

       But irrational was good.

          *Raine Ishida (nanaki_17@hotmail.com)

           gives the full account of the incident at

           the dock in "The Library Girl's Secret."

       "You can't kiss me," she told him, her back still turned.  Agitatedly, she crossed her arms and hugged herself.

       Before Zell could protest, she added, "Not until you solve the riddle."

       "What's so important about this riddle?" he inquired, squinting with incredulity.

       "It's not just any riddle," Mina explained, "it's mine."

       Zell stuck his hands in his pockets.  _Okay…_

       "I want to know if you really like me," she explicated, sensing his exasperation.

       "So what does it mean once I solve it?" Zell asked, kicking a stray pebble over the edge of the boardwalk.

       "It means I'm yours and you can keep me," she replied so gently that all the whisperers in the world grew jealous.

       Zell took one hand out of his pocket and rubbed the back of his head while deciding what best to say next.  It didn't seem like a moment appropriate for making one of his usual interjections.  Mina spared him of his impasse.

       Turning around and staring squarely into his eyes, she told him wordlessly how much it meant to her for him to answer her riddle.  Through the silence she made him understand that he could have as much time as he needed to find the answer, but it was a one-shot deal.  She would wait as long as it took for him to find her key – the key to her – but in the end, it had to be to the right one.  Her eyes bored down so deeply into his own that he could have sworn she grazed the base and captured his soul.

       Zell blinked, realizing that he had never felt so vulnerable, so fragile in his life.  She had him.

       He wondered what Mina was thinking right then.

       _Probably nothing, he guessed._

       _Or what a chump you are, the voice his head second-guessed him._

       Lying on the forest floor, Zell sighed and rubbed his forehead with his palm.

       That was basically how their last date ended.  After the mutual staring had ended, she demanded to be escorted back to her room and he obliged her.  He did not see her again till the ball after Ultimecia's defeat.  The hotdogs had been particularly distracting that evening.

       Floating above the drooping foliage, the gray clouds looked that much grayer.  Grayer now that she was not with him.  How the sky could be visually blacker than the most dismal pitch was, 

among many other truths, hidden from him, but the soul is neither blind nor bound by optics or any other concrete physical characterization, and so the eyeless judge within his heart was telling him that at this moment, the night sky was indeed blacker than black and that it was indeed emptier than empty.  That much it could discern, and thus spoke the visionless wonder to Zell.

       He covered his face with his grubby hands, the visage of the male character in the photograph having returned to haunt him.

       "Who are you!?" Zell screamed into the apathetic wilderness.

       _Who are you!? he heard it throw the echo back at him again and again._

       He groaned tumultuously, no longer able to fend off the fear that it was undoubtedly his fault that she had turned away from him.

       _Give me another chance, Mina,__ he appealed inside, broken, frightened._

       _Please, just…_

_       Pause._

       _Just don't give up on me._

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	20. Setting 17: 0019 DAY 16, Caraway's Mansi...

**Setting 17: 0019 DAY 16, Caraway's Mansion 2F (Master Bedroom)**

_"Love me faithfully!_

_See how I am faithful:_

_With all my heart_

_And all my soul_

_I am with you_

_Though I am far away."  
  
_

Carmina Burana

"Omnia Sol Temperat"

       _"D_on't give up on me!" shouted the bastion of courage, his head bobbing just above the surface.

       He had worked to hard for her to quit on him right then.  Even in the state of emergency he wore the mask of mild annoyance that seemed to say, "I've put in too much time and effort for you to throw it all away."  He debated whether to slow down, save his energy, and turn back because she could not hold her own or to push forward, doubly resolute before she capitulated.

       _Why do I always have to decide?_ he wondered.  _Why do I get all the hard decisions?_

       It was clear that the girl had made her own choice.  He had no right to intervene and deprive her of the path she chose to take.  It was her call and she had ruled in favor of death.  She had even desisted in her screaming.  Did he really have to step in?  He was taking a risk equally grave as it was unnecessary.  If she wanted to go to hell, she should not have to drag him down with her?

       _W__hy can't they save themselves these days?_ he asked himself exasperatedly.  _Why do I always have to save them?_

       They were rhetorical questions whose answers he already knew: The meek had no choice but to act meek, just like he as a hero had to act heroic.  The hero's life was not one of privilege, not by a long shot if it couldn't even pass for being fair.  His was the most unfair life of all, made worse by two truths that never ceased to haunt him: One, there was no forum in which any semblance of authority was available to give a flying damn about his grievances; and two, he had to suffer every inch of this miserable life no matter how insufferable it was.  The corollary paradox of this situation was a further injustice and slap to the face.

       He would rather have the function of a hero become obsolete than continue this charade of being valiant for the rest of his life.  He had better things to do in life and more he wanted out of it than be the hero.  Aside from that, what else was he?  The First Son of Esthar?  How did people really expect him to come through and save the day like a Prince Charming when he could not even handle being the President's son?

       Were it in his power to have the entire antiquated occupation retired for good, it would have been accomplished.  It never failed – whenever he had a moment to spare for himself, there was always another voice crying out and appealing for his help.  Did it ever occur to anyone else that he might not enjoy saving them as much as they liked being saved?  Did they ever consider that he might have better things to do?  That there were times he needed to be alone?  That he deserved his privacy?  That he might want to live his own life and not be responsible for everyone else?  That completing heroic feats usually meant violating the rules he had been trained to obey as a mercenary, undermining the time-honored procedures of the profession, and disregarding the conduct proper to his station as a SeeD?

       _It won't be long now_, he guessed.  _I'm almost there._

       Altruism should be left to the humanists, and he was no humanist.  He knew that much.  He was a soldier who wanted to keep things simple.  It made him sick to think that his colleagues considered him the dark horse candidate for the man of the year.  On his list of ideal vocations, the soldier was right up there with the Malboro farmer.  He ascribed his reluctant but undeniable calling to the occupation of the world's superman to dumb luck, or to a dumb curse bestowed upon him by fate.  If the latter case turned out to be true, he would not pass up a chance to meet with this fate – fate with a crooked sense of humor; fate who doled out fortunes with a lame hand; fate who was slipping up on the job because she lacked competition and was growing complacent – and teach her a lesson.

       _Just a little further now_, he assured himself, still weaving his way through what seemed like an eternity of waves.

       He looked back to the shoreline and entertained in the idea of turning around, wading half of the way there, and letting the ocean do the rest.  Straddling the rushing water and riding it home unconditionally beat having to work against it.  The current was a classic example of a better friend to have than an enemy.

       When he turned back around an instant later, his hopes fell.  Having lost her position, he cursed silently, _Damn her, where is she?_

       In all probability, he was being punished.  The heavens had decreed in their own secret tongue long lost to man that the innocents who were constantly hurt, slighted, and abandoned in their childhood, and who never sought to hurt, slight, or abandon others, would get no reprieve in maturity.  Or maybe someone up there was just pissed at him for no reason other than he was who he was.  Either way, he was losing out on the life he wanted, the life he deserved.

       A simple life was, in his humble opinion, not too much to ask for, considering all the life-shortening complexities he had endured already.  Did it seem odd to anyone else that the wheel of fortune never seemed to turn for him?  He would have liked to think that the term, "change of fortune," when applied to his life, meant more than just another life-threatening antagonist, obstacle, or predicament.  Surely there had to be more in store for him in life than bloodletting.

       And then he was remembered where he was and was aptly reminded of every reason why his idealism should have died with his mother.  It was stupid of him to think that he would ever get off the hook with the excuse that it was human nature to be selfish and therefore not a crime to act accordingly.

       She was nowhere in sight.  It was probably all over already; if she had not gone under by herself, then she was dragged under and torn to pieces in the feeding frenzy of the sea monsters.  Case closed.

       _Can I go home now?_ he pleaded with himself.

       He treaded water for a few seconds more, looking for either a proof of life or a proof of death.  One sign was as good as the other.

       The waves crashed against the rock base of the cliff while the sand rattled against the lapping surf.  It was getting late and the upper fringe of the sun was on the verge of disappearing under the horizon as if the sea was wrestling it down into its watery grave.  No amount of wailing could save it, premature a death as it was.

       He spit out some water and watched as it fused back into the oblivion of the main body.  The girl was as good as dead.  There was nothing more that he could do.  He shrugged and looked back towards the inviting shore.

       Turning his back on her, the hero began to leave.

       Rinoa screamed, eyes snapping open, and fell out of her chair.

       _Where am I?_ she wondered frantically.

       Face down, she did not recognize the carpet design since the chance to study it at such close range had never presented itself before.  When she lifted herself to her feet and took a second look, it became unmistakably clear where she was.  It was all there: The ivory ceiling panels, the oaken bedposts, the velvet curtains; and the institutional furniture.

       She pressed two fingers against her chest and felt the frequency of her heartbeats slow to its natural rhythm under the regulation of her newly conscious mind.  It had all been a dream.

       _No_, she corrected, _more than a dream, and much more than a nightmare.  A vision._

       It had seemed so real, like he had been right in front of her, like his sentiments had been directed at her, like his giving up had forsaken her.

       Even her hair smelled salty.

       The night of the celebration, before she had the chance to sneak away to the Balamb Garden balcony with Squall, Mrs. Kramer had dragged her aside and lectured to her about how the sorceress and her knight were linked in a way that defied empirical explanation.  Rinoa just never expected it to be this intimate.  Who knew if Edea's version of the experience was the norm anyway?  She was a different woman.  It was perfectly possible that she would have to face a different reality.

       At the same time, though, Rinoa was forced to admit that her reality was rapidly becoming one with Squall's.  The way that she read Squall's every thought in her vision was testimony enough to this incommunicable phenomenon of psychosomatic union.  At the rate that this strange synergy was occurring, soon there would be no secrets between them.  She was not too sure if Squall would like that.  

       The initial alarm she felt from losing a percentage of her privacy was fading fast, and she was comfortably warming to the idea of sharing her emotional wellspring with the source and sole recipient of her love, Squall Leonhart.

       _Oh!_ she gasped.  _I almost forgot!_

       Squall and Angelo, the two recipients of her love.  Angelo made about as good a knight as Squall did when it came to protecting her.  The two had approximately the same level of communication skills as well, but sometimes Angelo seemed more articulate and more of a people-person…people-canine.  Angelo was a dog, though, and she had to remember that.

       She whistled in relief, scarcely believing that she had almost left her little princess out of the picture.  After additional consideration, Rinoa was actually glad that she did not have any paranormal bond with her dog because Angelo would have nipped her heel if she ever knew that her mistress had come that close to forgetting her.  Squall, on the other hand, did not dare touch her after that night and the cold shoulder she had practiced to perfection.

       _So_, she thought, returning to her original inquest, _when am I?_

       Rinoa looked around for the time, but caught herself, remembering for the second time that the General never installed a timepiece in his room.  It was a wonder how he always knew what was going on.  Perhaps it was his way of making a statement about life, or about love, or about how time affected life and love, or about how time could not affect life or love.  Whatever it was, it was also an inconvenience to her because she wanted to know the time.

       "Guess we're going to have to try it my way," she huffed, bending down and placing her hand on the seat of the chair, still warm and proudly displaying her imprint.

       It felt about three hours warm, give or take twenty minutes.  She dusted off her hands and smiled, knowing that she had retained at least one skill from the lessons offered by the School for Ladies.  Three hours warm.  Scalding.

       Her smile curled in disdain at the remembrance of the taunts from one of the upperclasswomen.  The girl, Nana, was assigned Rinoa's chair the period after her and complained everyday that year about how warm the seat was.  In class and during their lunch break, she publicly denounced Rinoa's butt as heater too powerful to pass school fire-safety regulations and petitioned to the directorial committee for Rinoa to be quarantined.  As a result, the nickname of "Heater-butt" burgeoned in popularity among the upper echelons and spread, regrettably, like a wildfire to some of the lower circles.  Rinoa maintained that Nana's accusations were all lies but as she was unable to allow her classmates or the boys from the neighboring academy to test the verity of Nana's claim, Rinoa's ill-defended innocence was forfeited and they gave the prom queen title to someone else.  Rinoa held a grudge against the sorority that barred her would-be guaranteed induction, secretly believing that they had ruled under the sway of the crippling allegations.  For all they cared, she might as well have been toting around a scarlet "H" on every dress she wore, the letter being short for "Heater-butt."  The visual representation of her disgrace would not have any more a stigmatizing effect on her character as the unanimous opinion of the public already dictated.

       Rinoa checked to see if anyone else was in the room and if the curtains were drawn before she felt the back of her skirt.  Reluctantly she conceded that Nana had been right.

       She looked back to the width of her impression on the seat with a frown.

       _You're not that wide, are you?_ she thought about asking her rump.  _I thought we've been through this and you said it was fixed!_

       The other adamantly maintained that it was not to blame; after all, if had absolutely no control over what kind of food and how much of it went in at the other end.

       Rinoa growled, fists shaking, but capitulated.  It was indeed all her fault.  A grim moment ensued in which Rinoa bemoaned her helpless status, bereft of any authority with which to govern her mutinying body parts.  First her mind had begun to play games with her head and now the situation had dilapidated into her rear giving her lip.  A sassy, insubordinate rear who did not acknowledge who was the boss was the last thing she needed, next to a lap dance from Zell.  Losing her mind was one thing, but losing her shape was another; Squall could handle a Rinoa with a few loose screws in the dusty attic and perhaps even a few visits to the loony bin, but there was no way that he would forgive her for being deformed.  She was so horribly disfigured.  She probably looked like a monster.

_       What am I going to do?  How will Squall ever take me back?_

       She pulled at her hair with both hands and tried to find a way to take back her body first.

       A cheery thought danced into her head.  It fluttered from one ear to the other before taking a second peek inside, lighting up Rinoa's eyes with its miny-lantern of optimism.  The glow from behind her dark irises revealed that an idea had been wrought.

       "Maybe it is just the angle," she suggested rosily, and the world beamed, nodding to her with a wink, and the nightingales sprung to life, shooting up into heavens, chirping with such gaiety unknown even to the land of eternal spring.

       Rinoa moved in front of the reflective window and looked at her behind from another slant.

       And the songbirds fell from their lofty perches headlong, plunging deep into the well of hard facts and even harsher reality, _plop plop plop_.  They were not the only ones out of breath.

       How could she have let this happen?  It was so unbelievable, she could hardly believe it!

       _How did this happen?_ she screamed inside her head, the jugular muscles constricting.

       The other shrugged in a cavalier fashion and told her not to glare at it any longer.

       _It's not my problem_, it seemed to say, _I'm perfectly satisfied with my appearance._

       Rinoa decided that it was being too smug for comfort, and she devised the perfect punishment.  She was going to sit back down.

       _Genius_, she complimented herself, _pure genius_.

       "Back into the oven with you," she pronounced with a sinister tone of voice.

       _You wouldn't!_ it remonstrated, a deep sweat breaking out over its face.

       "Watch me," she asserted despotically.

       With a graceful twist she was back in the seat, her maneuver muffling the curses exploding from her behind addressed to her and her family.  A self-satisfied grin stretched across her face; it felt good to be in control again.  It was all about who had the power.

       Abruptly the floorboards just outside her room creaked.  Rinoa straightened her posture at the sound of footsteps approaching from the other side of the door.  There followed a few polite taps and a jingle of keys before the knob turned.  The door opened just a crack, but the arc was wide enough for her to see the spectacled face of an elder man peering through the opening.  Upon seeing that she was decent, he swung the door open and walked into the room, replacing the General's key chain in his pocket.

       "Uncle Zen!" she gasped, standing up in attention.

       _Thank Eden you stood up! _her bottomrejoiced.  _I thought I was going to die!  I'll be damned if that sandwich isn't showing!  And damned twice if it is!  You're so freaking heav-_

       "Hush!" she snapped at it, face reddening.

       The man in the gray suit lifted an eyebrow but did not venture to ask her to explain herself, much to Rinoa's relief.  He laid his briefcase on the ground and walked to the desk behind her.

       "We're both adults now, Rinoa, so you can just call me Doctor Zen," he told her.

       Rinoa tried it out but it sounded way too foreign to her ears.  After showing up so much at the mansion after her mother passed away, and visiting every time the General – he had only been a captain at the time – needed his legal counsel, the lawyer had basically become an uncle to her.  To signal her disapproval at the new title he requested, she crinkled her nose and lowered her eyelids skeptically.

       If Zen saw the look on her face, he deliberately ignored it.  He was more interested in flipping through the small stack of papers that had been lying on top of the bureau.

       "Doctor Zen," she repeated for his benefit, "that name sounds so awkward, uncle Zen."

       "So does your voice," he commented without looking up from his work.  "Do you need some water?"

       "No, I'll be fine," Rinoa replied, slightly chaffed by his redirection.

       That was the way it was with her pseudo-uncle; they would take verbal stabs at each other and he always won.  She never once got the last word in their little game, but that was probably why she loved to talk to him.  He was a pistol when it came to word games, and the more times he shot her down, the more resilient she became and the more eager to bicker further.  Rinoa figured she had the best shot of winning the duel when he was distracted, so she took every opportunity to test him during his work hours.  This seemed like one of them.  In short, uncle Zen was nothing like the General.  It was so easy to trump her father and get the last say…or at least it used to be.

       "What are you doing?" she asked as he leafed through the pages in the stack.

       "My dear, this would be called 'shuffling papers'," he cooed like a kindergartener.

       She ignored the patronizing remark, realizing instead that Zen had not yet given her the daily dose of love she required and without which she could hardly be expected to function at her best.

       "What?" she pouted with open arms.  "No hug?"

       The middle-aged attorney shook his head, put down the loose sheets, and went into the drawers.

       "Too flat and wide for my tastes," was his dryly-delivered excuse.

       Rinoa's mouth fell and raised her hand to slap him across the face.  _You dirty bastard!_

       "I meant the door," Zen clarified hurriedly.  "The door was too flat and wide for me to hug on my way in."

       "No, you were not!" screamed Rinoa, eyes flaring.  "You think I'm flat and wide!"

       _So it is true? _she wondered fearfully.  _Does Squall think the same thing?  I cannot…no, it can't be!  Can it?  He has to be lying.  I wish he were lying.  I don't look like a door.  Is this why Squall won't get close to me?  Is it my fault?  Oh, Squall!  I'm…I'm...I'm so sorry!_

       "Hey, you said it, not me," Zen exculpating himself.__

       "Don't you dare turn this around on me, mister!" she menaced like she was not nearly through dealing with him.

       _And the ninth deadly plague to man reveals herself_, he reflected with a drudging sigh.  _O Eden, how do I handle this?  I just can't resist…oh what the heck._

       "Doctor," he reminded Rinoa of his proper title, picking the worst possible to time correct her.

       Well aware that Rinoa was going to strike him regardless of her unspoken acknowledgement that his legal expertise was worth every Gil that her father possessed and that he could sue for and manage to win every bit of it if she assaulted him, Zen moved quickly to secure one of the heftier books from the desk shelf with which he intended to the block the imminent blows. 

       It worked like a charm and more, obliging Rinoa to abandon her attack prematurely to rub her soft fingers and moan about the pain.  The fact that it was self-inflicted only drew out her tears in greater quantity.  Had the General been present, he might have preferred Angelo's barking to his daughter's fresh supply of rumpus.

       Seeing that nothing was going right, Rinoa threw up her arms and decided that the feeling she would get from screaming out all of the frustration she had suffered and stored in her belly for the past two weeks was grand enough to overshadow any pride she might lose in carrying out the act.

       A silent alarm sounded in Zen's head; he knew that look.  The room was in danger of being stuffier and a lot more embarrassing for the both of them if he did not intervene.

       "You're not going to be happy until I tell you what you want to hear?" he asked a beat quicker than Rinoa could manage her first and last sniffle, presumably the only buffer between her composure and the flood of lamentation to come.  It was like asking a toothpick to block a tsunami.  He just hoped that the toothpick would hold up long enough for him to do what he did best – parley, stall, and settle.  This precarious matter would have to be handled with the utmost tact.  Once again he would have to prove himself, if the waters were to recede.

       "I want you to speak the truth," she told him, stifling a wail.  "Swear by the book in your hand that I am shaped perfectly."

       "How about I just tell you that you have a gift for paradoxes?" Zen offered, trying his luck in hopes of an early settlement.

       His reward was to duck one of Rinoa's swats.  _Guess that's a "no."_

It was hard for Zen to believe that after his wife's death Captain Caraway could not find anyone else save his lawyer to forestall his daughter's emotional meltdowns.  It would be almost a decade before Caraway was promoted to the rank of General of Galbadia.

       "Tell me I'm beautiful," she insisted.  _If you want to live_.

       "I can't lie," he replied with artificial honor, even after he read the complementary threat from her eyes.

       "You're a lawyer," she reminded him, "it's your job to say what your client wants to hear."

       "And my client's daughter, I suppose?" Zen asked.

       "Say it!" Rinoa ordered.

       "Even if it's a lie?" her attorney questioned.

       She tried to smack him again but missed.

       "It's the truth, you evil, conscienceless, diplomatic mercenary!" she yelled.  "Don't forget you're my legal representative!"

       "Is this your gimmick to make me take the responsibility for how besmirched your public image is, you little witch?" he inquired.

       "Watch it or I'm going to find myself a new rep," Rinoa threatened him, jumping up and down.

       "I pity him already," Zen sympathized wholeheartedly.

       "'Rinoa is beautiful.'  Now say it like you mean it," she demanded, brushing off his affront.  The room might as well have caught fire at that moment.

       "But this is my book!" Zen protested, showing her the cover of the law manual _The Psychology of the Galbadian Justice System_.  "I wrote it!  You can't honestly expect me to swear away its legitimacy."

       "Say it!" she repeated more forcefully, claws bared like a Wendigo and ready to pounce.  "You have to swear!"

       Zen took a deep breath and mumbled, "With Odin as my witness, I hope the bar association knows that I am speaking under duress."

       "What was that?" Rinoa snapped.  She was going to make him eat those words.

       "I would not gush over you to save my life-" Zen admitted honestly.

       "Uncle Zen!" Rinoa interrupted furiously.  In the process, she raised her voice by a very noticeable notch – the type of notch that induces the neighboring houses to call with concern the next morning.

       "-but I would do it to save yours," he completed his statement suavely.

       The remark was dripping with too much charm to be taken seriously, the excess oozing out of its many leaks.  It was so pathetic but cute at the same time 

       "Fine," she conceded, forgiving him, "but you have to tell me what Caraway called you in today to handle."

       "Are you negotiating with me?" he asked incredulously but unable to suppress a huge smile just the same.

       "I'm offering you a deal you can't refuse," she said flatly.  "Believe me, it's the only way out."

       "So all I have to do is tell you why I'm snooping around in here and you'll let me get back down to business?" Zen summarized.

       "You'll also owe me a double-decker ice-cream sundae with fudge," Rinoa added at the last second.

       "What time, what store, which flavors, and do I have to attend?" the other inquired, rolling his eyes.

       "The plaintiff will stipulate later at her discretion," she shot back, making every effort to sound formal.

       "Fine, fine," Zen agreed hastily but made no attempt to mask his exasperation.  "Just let me be."

       It was Rinoa's turn to look at him like he was stupid; it was obvious even to her that he was trying to brush her out of the way.

       "I want a real, written and signed draft," she accosted him before he could continue digging through the drawers for whatever it was that he was after.  "How dumb do you think I am?"

       Zen squinted and asked cautiously, "How do you want me to answer that?"

       She tried to bury her nails in his arm, but he raised the book just in time to shield himself.  Under the circumstances, Zen decided that it would be best not to arouse her further by asking her if her question had been rhetorical.  He still had a job to do, and the General hated waiting.

       "Okay, okay," the attorney surrendered without putting up a fight.

       Rinoa settled back, crossed her arms, and beamed triumphantly.

       "Just go sit on the bed quietly while I write it up," he directed and pulled out a pen from his breast pocket.

       He found a piece of unused piece of leaf paper and was done scripting the deal before she could walk that far.  He bid her to turn around and walk back to the desk.

       "How does it look?" Zen solicited.

       "Perfect except you spelled my name wrong and the paper is lined," she complained.

       He looked at how he wrote down her name: "Rinoa Caraway."

       _My mistake_, he thought without feeling guilty.

       "But I didn't draw any of them," he argued, referring to the lines.

       "But there are lines on the page," Rinoa pointed out stubbornly.

       "All sheets of paper have hundreds of lines running across them," Zen shot back.  "That is how paper is made – with weaves."

       "There are _visible_ lines on this page," she clarified for him.

       "Since when is it my fault that your vision is so poor that you cannot detect any lines on other types of paper?" he returned, becoming annoyed with her.

       Rinoa grumbled something too low for him to catch, so he went back to his business of shuffling papers.  She watched him sort through a few piles before she dared to ask him what he was doing.

       "My job is to look like I am busy," he informed her without looking up.

       Rinoa's dogged visage was evidence that he was not fooling anyone.

       "Let's see if you have a future in modeling for still-life artists," he told her, bidding her to stop moving and to be quiet.

       Behind his back, Rinoa made a face and caricatured the expression he was wearing when he made the reply.

       "I have all I needed to get from this room," he notified her.  "Are you going to sign the contract or not?"

       Rinoa nodded fervently.  She swiftly stole the pen that he had replaced in his breast pocket and signed "Rinoa Heartilly" in the column left for her signature.

       "I'm keeping this," Zen said, taking up the page and folding it to fit in his jacket pocket.  He also wrestled his pen from her kung-fu grasp.

       "Not so fast," she blurted out, catching his elbow as he turned to leave.

       "What now?" he huffed, evidently jaded by her presence, voice, contact, and input.

       "I get to keep the contract," she insisted, "until you buy me my double sundae."

       "Well that isn't fair," he defended his position.  "This is my only guarantee that I will walk out of the room in peace."

       Rinoa lifted an eyebrow, sensing a trick.

       "How about you keep one half and I keep the other half?" Zen proposed.

       Rinoa scoffed at his elementary scam disguised as a compromise.

       "No way!" she shouted.  "Tearing it in half would annul the contract altogether!  What do you take me for?"

       Sensing that it was another one of Rinoa's rhetorical questions, Zen kept silent and handed the paper over to her.  She snatched it up in a flash like a mother chocobo would her baby chicobos when Selphie or Ellone came bounding onto their nesting grounds.

       "Now tell me what you're doing," she said.

       "Having the time of my life chatting with you at this great hour," Zen replied, crossing his fingers.

       The look on Rinoa's face told him to try again.

       "What does it look like I am doing?" Zen asked.  "I'm putting together some files for a case that needs our immediate attention."

       "This late?" she checked him incredulously.

       "I could just be working very, very early this morning," he suggested as an alternative.

       She did not believe a single world that came out of the lawyer's mouth.  

       "What you are holding in your hand?" she inquired, looking down.

       Zen looked down at the papers that he was clasping with both hands.

       "I'm holding my other hand," he replied.

       "What is that?" she rephrased, specifically tapping the other sheet of paper with her index finger.

       Zen was wearing a curious expression on his face when he replied condescendingly, "That, mistress of the obvious, would be your fingernail."

       Rinoa lifted her index finger and scowled.  It was indeed her fingernail that lied at the tip of her finger.  A great rush of anger churned deep within her bowels, spitting up frothy embers that sizzled against the edge of her stomach.

       "What are those papers you are holding?" she rephrased, struggling to keep her voice down and her countenance ladylike.

       "They are confidential," Zen trumped her.

       "To be held strictly between my client and myself," he explained as if she could not possibly understand what he meant by the word "confidential."

       "You and I both know that in your contract with my father, the client-consultant relationship extends to his immediate family or next of kin if there is no immediate family left," Rinoa contended.  "Well, I am his only kin."

       "Besides," she added when he did not speak, "you promised my mother that you'd take care of me.  So tell me if I should be concerned with those pieces of paper."

       "Do you have any physical proof that you are his daughter?" Zen debriefed her.

       "Don't you see the uncanny resemblance?" Rinoa cooed, batting her lashes to accentuate her Bambi eyes.

       "Evidence inadmissible," Zen judged, shaking his head.  "Members of the jury, please ignore the witness' last statement."

       "Objection!" Rinoa quipped, playing along just to spite him, "he is being a jerk."

       "Objection," Zen brushed her off, "an aim to strike."

       "You got that right!" Rinoa growled, vacillating between which hand to use to strangle him.

       "Bailiff," Zen declared coolly, "restrain her."

       Rinoa dropped her fist and her façade of sweetness and screamed, "Stop being so difficult, uncle Zen!"

       Zen rolled his eyes and shifted his weight to his other leg before drawing out his documents and listing them off individually:

       "This one is our refutation of the electric company's penal fees; this is the finalization order for the upgrade of the classification level of the Galbadian military's telescope to 'Highest Priority, Top Secret'; here is the record of your father's executive decision to discontinue the annual funding for the Galbadian Astronomy Program eight days ago; this sheet has the totals for the net worth of all the stock he bought up in the last two weeks to gain control of the Deling City Planetarium and Observatory; here we have the totals for the net losses he suffered when they dropped; this next one is a recent fax from an old claimant whose suit against us we'd thought would go away but apparently has not; here we have a copy of you mother's will with her clause for a trust fund to manage her money underlined; this is the report from intelligence on the present situation of each trustee on the board; this next page describes where your father stands financially, including property and secret assets; and this last one is so absurd that I won't mention because, quite frankly, I do not think the aging hearts of this elderly Deling aristocracy can withstand a joke this good.  I have faith that it would garner many laughs at the dinner table over the years and cut many lives short via asphyxiation, not that there is anyone worth saving in our city's financially elite class."

       Not expecting him to fold so quickly, Rinoa listened attentively as her attorney identified each document.  From the gravity of his voice and the fact that he had hardly put up a fight, she could guess that it was bad news before he got through telling her about the entire stack.  By the time he had finished, she was near faint and had to hold on to back of the chair to keep herself from falling.

       Zen reached out to steady her but she shook his arm off.  The moment she caught her breath, she turned on him and reproached, "How could you not watch out for him for me?"

       "What are you talking about?" Zen returned, somewhat chaffed by how she recoiled.

       "Did you not think of warning him against any of this?" she pressed, clearly disappointed in her attorney.  "I mean, you could have advised him not to get into these messes."

       Zen frowned and shot back, "It is my job to save him from legal hassles.  It is not my place to tell him what not to do.  He does what he wants and comes to me when he wants out and needs me to provide the avenue.  That's _my_ job!  I protect his ass, and yours!  And I am damned good at it!  If you wanted to keep him out of trouble in the first place, you should have hired a nurse or nanny."

       "You are more than our lawyer, though," Rinoa scolded softly, "you're nearly family, too, uncle Zen, and _family_ looks out for one another."

       She placed a finger on him and gave him a rude push at the same time she emphasized the word "family."

       "You've spent the last year organizing rebel movements against your father's troops with his own money and you're lecturing me on values?" Zen retorted.

       Rinoa's expression dropped and she turned away.  She ended up gazing at the same, partially reflective window.  She fancied how the glass allowed her to see herself and what lied beyond simultaneously.  She saw through her mirror image and noticed that it was no longer raining on the other side.

       _Am I that transparent?_ she reflected.

       Returning to Zen's question, she mouthed sullenly, "That's different."

       "How is that different?" he demanded to know.

       She insisted, "Once a Timber Forest Owl, always a-"

       "Stubborn ox," Zen inserted for her.

       Rinoa did not turn her gaze away from the window.  Instead, she just glowered at her likeness and grumbled, "Not exactly my choice of words."

       "Hard-headed nonconformist?" Zen suggested, taking another stab.

       Rinoa could feel her fingers tightening in her fist.  She wanted to lash out.  She wanted to do something that she would regret doing.  She wanted to strangle him, but then she would have lost the game.  Rinoa calmed herself and willed herself to endure the humiliation.  It would all work out in the end and no one would have the advantage over anyone else.  She opened her eyes after a few deep breaths.

       "I'm not going to argue with you, Zen," she told him seriously.  "Just fill me in on what I need to know and go."

       The man was seemed elated yet concerned in equal amounts.  He never imagined that his little niece would try to throw him out, but, being familiar with her temper, he was a fool to not expect it.

       _Does she have the right to know?_ he asked himself over and over again.

       He had given too much away already, and if Caraway were a less accommodating client, he could very well be disbarred by that evening.  He was also very fortunate that Caraway's daughter was not clever enough to blackmail him into giving her the rest of the information by threatening to report him as having already given it all to her.  Like a tour guide who leads a band of tourists into a prohibited area and grows a conscience at the halfway mark, he was bound to pressured into taking them the rest of the way by the threat of a falsehood as damaging as the truth.  At that instant, as there was no other avenue open to Zen, he figured that he might as well tell the truth while its credibility was still intact.  All he had to consider now were the consequences of this unauthorized disclosure:  Disgrace; public ridicule; the loss of vocation; a stigma on his record; and exile from the professional order.

       Rinoa wanted so badly to give him a swift kick; he was taking way too long; he was even drawing out his blink for an extended amount of time.

       _And all for what?_ Zen asked himself fiercely.  _Was it something she needed to know?  Can't I just not tell her?_

       Each secret was a burden to keep in one's house.  To introduce them to the domestic setting was to adopt a problem child.  To Caraway, it would be the type of child that he could not beat; in the end, it would beat him.  _Unless I act now_._  I might have saved someone._

       He sat down in the chair and adjusted his glasses.  He could not bring himself to divulge any more  _What is honesty worth?_

       Rinoa watched with interest as the lawyer loosened his tie and rubbed his temples.  This type of grand, moral deliberation was probably alien to him.  For the first time, she thought she saw that he was on the verge of telling him, and that he actually wanted to tell him.

       _So what is holding him back?_ she wondered.  _Fear?  Pride?  Selfishness?_

       She wanted so badly to give him a hug for finally seeing the light.  Perhaps this was the last leg of the journey home for him.  Was it possible for a man to have gone too far out and seen too much?

_       Every profession has a price_.  _Why does mine have to be my conscience? _Zen pondered.

       His own thoughts resonated in his mind.  In the right ear rang, _I might have saved someone_, and in the left,_ What is honesty worth?_

       Zen frowned.  _Well, it's worth who I am._

       Honesty was only worth as much as the next person could pay you to withhold it.  Its value was its price, and to sell out his own judgment was the cost of the job.  He had been bribed to deceive, bought up to be quiet.

       _Your silence is golden_, concluded Zen, _if your employer can afford it_.

       At that point, it all became clear; he was in the wrong, lurking in shadow of good pay.

       _Well, of course it is good pay_, he contemplated.  _It is a good lot of secrets, too._

       So he was back to where he started.  His motives were not evil and neither was his person.  Yet, there was something missing – he could not be himself; he could not wholly be that person whom he wanted to be, unfettered and vociferous.  Suppressing himself – that was the tax that came with the job, and if cash was the perquisite, did it not logically follow that the purging of one's ethics was a prerequisite?

       _Knowing this now, how can I not tell her?_ he wondered.

       Rinoa curled her lips out to make a pouting face and drooped her eyes to match.

       _Why does it feel so painful to do right?_ was his last thought.

       "Okay," he muttered with a sigh, "let's start with the electricity bill."

       She jumped up in delight and let loose a small shriek.

       "Thank you, uncle Zen," she whispered, giving him the king of hugs and the hug of kings, and she meant it.

       After he pried her arms off of his neck, he adjusted his spectacles and corrected her, "Doctor."  _Not uncle_.

       Rinoa's eyelids drooped in the most confounded, exasperated fashion; only Zen could ruin a moment so sweet with a single word and without resorting to any blasphemies.

       Zen coughed and held the bill out before all the other papers.

       "We are currently disputing with the local electric company over last month's bill.  The term ended a few days ago, right after which we received the notice that we would be penalized for over-consumption."

       "How did this happen?" Rinoa probed and then bit on her lower lip while she waited for the answer.

       "First of all," her attorney elucidated, "their figures seem way off from what our meters have recorded.  I have walked over this estate three times since and I have not seen any industrial machinery nor witnessed your father call in a group of men to haul over and install any bulky, metal apparatuses."

       "What makes you think he would need to hire extra manpower?" Rinoa asked.  "Wouldn't the servants have been enough."

       "From the figure that the company claims was our true total wattage-time," Zen said grimly, "it would take a full of factory assembly lines to expend that amount of energy."

       "So just question the servants behind my father's back," she suggested.

       "They witnessed nothing," Zen replied.  Being one step ahead of her, he had naturally already executed the interrogation.

       "Can you just have the electric company send an investigation team to check out our meter?" posed Rinoa.

       "They would just allege that we had deliberately sabotaged the gage," he responded.

       Rinoa frowned hugged herself more tightly.  She was running out of ideas.

       "You don't know the half of it," the lawyer continued.  "The main issue is not the hourly rate, but the fixed monthly cost that the company is upping with an added penalty fee."

       "Come again?" Rinoa requested.

       "The owner of each sector has to overestimate the maximum amount of electricity he plans to use that month to avoid having to pay the heavy tax for going over this limit," Zen explicated.

       "Does the entire sector split the hourly rate as well?" Rinoa inquired.

       Zen shook his head.

       "No, what everyone else uses is their business," he replied.

       "So what is wrong with splitting just the fixed cost one to three?" she asked, knowing that their land took up a quarter of the land marked within the sector boundaries.

       "The fixed cost also varies depending on the total hours used," Zen explained.  "After a breaking a certain number of hours, the sector has to upgrade its energy package to one of higher cost.  Since we had no part in using the excessive amount of electricity needed to push the fixed cost up to the next payment level, we have no intention of paying a fourth of the new price; rather we want to see our part of the bill adjusted back to what it was before the fixed cost rose."

       "It doesn't seem like an unsolvable probl-" Rinoa remarked.

       "The problem," Zen cut in, "is that the rest of the sector is using the same excuse and denying the charges of using enough power to run an underwater factory."

       Rinoa nodded, slowly seeing the light.

       "Furthermore," the lawyer added, "they do not want to pay any part of the huge penalty fee."

       "What are you going to do about it?" Rinoa asked plainly.

       Zen frowned.

       "You're just like your father," he scoffed.  "Why not just call in the legal remedy as soon as something goes wrong and let _him_ handle it?" 

       "Well?" Rinoa repeated, impatiently tapping her feet against the floor.  "What are you going to do?"

       "Lie, cheat, and shift the blame," he replied bitterly.

       Rinoa threw up her hands from their crossed position and rolled her eyes.

       "Whatever," she said, seriously getting tired of his incessant string of complaints.  _You whine too much_.

       Zen shrugged and moved on to next document.

       "This is the army's telescope," he explained to her, "but it is about to become his."

       Rinoa took the page up in her hands and studied the diagram of the telescope carefully.

       "After this last order goes through," Zen continued, "to get in and operate it will take more clearance than a second-hand book store can offer during a liquidation sale."

       "Why would he go do that?" she asked.

       "Now that would be 'Top-Secret'," he replied in a patronizing voice.

       Surprisingly enough, Rinoa did not react to the jibe.  Instead she scratched her head and made a face of fierce contemplation but entertained no great theories in the end.  Hesitantly she pointed at the next piece of paper and gestured for him to go on.

       "This is how you curb the efforts of the largest non-profit organization in the country to study the stars," the lawyer lectured, "by discontinuing your fiscal donations during the grant renewal period."

       "That is no surprise," Rinoa quipped, "seeing how Caraway has no penchant for either charities or for the humanities."

        Zen snickered and flipped to the next page.  The subject at hand was still a mystery to him.

       After skimming over it, Rinoa incredulously sought his confirmation on whether or not her father actually spent a large percentage of the family wealth to buy up a staggering percentage of stock of the corporation that subsidizes the Deling City Planetarium and Observatory."

       "What were the projected returns?" she questioned.

       Zen checked his logs before coming up with the answer, "At the time, the predicted probable return was negative." 

       "He bought high?" Rinoa asked in disbelief.

       "Yes," the attorney affirmed. 

       "That is completely irrational," said Rinoa, stressing the adverb.

       "It's in the genes," Zen remarked decisively.

       She slugged him.  _Jerk_.

       "Seriously," she probed, "what would motivate him to do that?"

       "I have no idea but do not go and ask him!" he replied.

       Rinoa alternated between sucking on her thumb and biting on her nail, trying to make sense of the situation and find at least one point that could offer some optimism.  _So he bought high, but at least he hasn't sold low_.

       "Just tell me one thing," Rinoa pleaded with Zen, her eyes betraying her nervousness.

       Zen waited sullenly for her to verbalize the ineffable – ineffable because it was unthinkable.

       "…are we in danger of going broke?" she finished her question.

       "Your father is flirting with bankruptcy, yes," her lawyer could confirm for her.

       Rinoa's face fell and the brightness about her dimmed a shade.

       "How could you let this happen?" she cried pitiably as she buried her face in her hands.

       "Must I remind you that I am not his financial planner, economic advisor, or debt relief," Zen differentiated stolidly, "I am his legal remedy."

       Rinoa looked up and glared at him with a hardened countenance.

       "Besides," Zen rationalized, "no one could predict that his shares would plummet so drastically after the President's assassination.  Are you going to pin that on me when the entire Galbadian stock market is suffering?"

       _With Galbadia's people coming loose and systems falling apart, Timber's resistance factions could probably take on the government alone, as in without the help of SeeD.  I'll have to bring this up with Squall when I see him again._

       "That couldn't be because some sorceress staged a coup in the capital city, could it?" Rinoa growled her retort spitefully.

       "Are you mad at me or the sorceress?" Zen rejoined angrily.

       He held up his hands and added, "I'm not the one in cahoots with Edea or her SeeDs."

       After a second had passed, he linked the implicit affront with, "Take care not to try the same thing."

       Her lower lip quivered, her heart faltered, and she felt the blood drain from her face.  _Now that was not fair!_

       He had just reminded her that she was new sorceress – the bringer of the plague; the demagogic inspiration of political unrest; and apparently the instigator of economic upset as well.

       Rinoa felt her knees wobble so she quickly took a seat on the mattress and hugged the bedpost for support.  _Oh Squall!  Where are you?  I'm scared._

Her despondent expression and equally dismal posture were inadequate in communicating to what degree of desperation her spirit was screaming, _I'm so scared!  I need you!_

       Zen seemed to sense at least a iota of her heartrending sentiment, and his features relaxed into an appearance look indicative of the guilty and apologetic feelings that had seized him.

       "No, it's not your fault either," he admitted, "but you should not be so harsh on your father."

       Rinoa wiped away a tear with the back of her hand and raised a questioning eyebrow.

       "A large part of this financial crisis stems from your mother," Zen informed her.  "She is the root of the problem that he now faces."

       Rinoa was at a loss for words; she had not expected this turn of events, but now, having been met by them, she sought clarification.

       "You might find this hard to believe," he spoke, "but six years after Julia's song "Eyes on Me" topped the charts, your house fell to a barrage of legal hassles."

       "Which is why you began showing up more and more," Rinoa inferred.  _I was about to be five years old at the time_.

       The lawyer nodded and said, "As you can imagine, the entire workload was left to me after your mother passed."

       "You mentioned the song, which means she was being sued for breaching copyright and stealing the lyrics and score from someone else," Rinoa speculated further.

       "Investigated, not sued," Zen corrected though noticeably impressed by her deductive capabilities.  "I managed to keep them from ever going public by threatening to counter-sue for libel if they did not win the case, and by feeding them ideas about a good bargain if they entertained the idea of a quiet settlement."

       "How much did we lose in the settlement?" Rinoa asked curiously.  _Was I exactly five or just five give or take a few months?_

       Zen looked slightly annoyed.

       "I never had to settle so you lost nothing," he bragged.  "How incompetent do you think I am, Rinoa?"

       "It's been over a decade since and I have never gotten wind of it until now!" Rinoa exclaimed.  "How does a case like this just disappear?"

       "During the mediation sessions they could not produce the original notes and authenticate their claim of composing song," Zen explained.  "They could not take us to court or I would go through with the counter-suit for the damage that would have done to your mother's public, celebrity image."

       After a moment of silence, Rinoa inquired, "Who was the plaintiff?"

       "A certain Lady Wong," answered Zen, "who still _is_ the plaintiff."

       "Can you do anything to help my mother this time?" Rinoa pursued.  _I was probably no older than five._

       "Not without her notes," he professed.  "Right now we have no case so the General is standing to lose a lot."

       Rinoa blinked.

       "Wait a minute," she told him.  "Are you telling me that you lost the original drafts of the lyrics and music sheets, or that we never had them?"

       Zen deliberately grinned like a twit and held up two fingers, thus indicating that her second guess was right on the money.

       "I bluffed them twelve or thirteen years back into believing that we had our own set," her attorney confessed proudly.

       "But they are suing us now," Rinoa reminded him.  _I was five at the time_.

       "They must have found their notes," Zen concluded with a shrug.

       _How can you be so calm about this?_ she wondered furiously.

       "How much is 'a lot'?" Rinoa asked through her glare, backtracking to the figure that Zen had estimated her father would lose.

       "Everything; complete; wholly; all; entire; total," he replied, not mincing any words.

       As if she could not possibly fathom what any of those synonyms meant, he added, "A man does not recover from a fall like this."    

       "Where did my mother say she saw her notes last?" Rinoa inquired.

       "She claimed wrote everything in her diary," he replied.

       "Where did she last see her diary lying around?" she queried further.

       Zen shrugged and responded, "She never told us.  She just said that she lost it."

       "That is so sad," Rinoa assessed glumly.

       "Julia was a very tender girl," Zen recalled.  "The allegations came at a very inopportune time.  I suspect that the embarrassment from the charges, true or not, drove her to, uh, take her own, er-"

       "Whatever," Rinoa dismissed icily, easily picking up what he was getting at.  _Caraway drove my mother to where she is now, not some stupid accusations.  Hell, he only married her the year she released her song and was propelled into stardom, so why would he bother keeping her around if she lost both her money and her image?  He probably ended her himself.  I had just turned five then._

       "Can Lady Wong sue for more than my mother made in record and CD sales?" she wanted to know.

       "Of course not," Zen replied.

       "Then why is Caraway in danger of losing all of his property?" Rinoa returned.

       "Because he does not have access to any of your mother's money," was the answer.

       "Do you mean he has no control over it or do you mean he has no idea where it is?" she asked.

       Zen scratched his nose and muttered, "Both."

       Rinoa squinted and tried to figure out how it was possible for him to not only cede the managerial authority of his late wife's earnings, but to completely lose track of the sum itself.

       "For some reason that she never disclosed to any of us," the attorney illuminated for her, "Julia put all of her money in a trust fund to be managed by a board of ten trustees."

       "I am assuming that my mother did this before her wedding," Rinoa guessed.

       "Eight days before she was to be married to Captain Caraway," Zen was able to confirm with a nod.

       "So who are these fellows?" she inquired.

       Zen handed her a list with ten names set in one column and ten distinct dates set in the other.

       "I don't recognize any of these surnames," Rinoa commented.  "Where did these people come from if they're not from Galbadia?"

       "Esthar," Zen responded evenly, "all ten of them."

       Even Rinoa caught the mistrust in his voice.

       "Do they know where the money is?" she followed up.

       "If not them, who else would?" Zen shot back.

       She decided that his remark was more worrisome than reassuring.  Suddenly she noticed the paper's heading.  It bore an insignia with which she was all too familiar.  Rinoa stared up in shock.

       "What are their names doing on a Galbadian police report?" she demanded.

       "This is classified information that we pulled off the Esthar Interpol over a decade ago," Zen told her.  "It is a missing person's report, or missing people's report in this case."

       Unable to arrange any of her own jumbled thoughts into a coherent message, Rinoa was grateful when Zen finally spoke her mind for her, "The money seems to have vanished completely."

       "Is there any other person who might know about its whereabouts?" she tried to solicit again.

       Zen cast a sideways glance at her before suggesting, "Your mother."

       "My mother," Rinoa repeated resignedly.  _I was passing my fifth birthday.  It was my birthday when she left me._

Rinoa closed her eyes, unlocking from the oubliette the thoughts that she had forsworn of thinking about ever again.  _She had gotten into a car and crashed into a tree on my birthday.  They must have just had a big fight.  She was really upset.  I was only five then, but I still remember the last words she ever said to me._

       Opening her eyes, Rinoa pressed suddenly, "Do you believe her?"  _Damn the father._

       "What is that supposed to mean?" Zen returned.  _The hell?_

       "Do you think she was telling the truth?" she rephrased for him.  _Damn the father._

       Zen put his hands up and shook his head.  _Oh no she didn't._

       "Oh no you don't," he told her, "I refuse to get drawn into this discussion with you."

       "Yes or no?" Rinoa urged.  "One syllable is all you have to muster."  _Damn him._

       "What part of my job description have you not been able to understand?" he asked exasperatedly.

       "The entire freaking thing!" Rinoa shouted, unable to keep a ladylike lid on her frustration any longer.  "How can you completely ignore the truth about those whom you defend?  Moreover, how can you ignore your own judgments?"

       _Why do I always have to decide?_ Zen wondered.  _Why do I get all the hard decisions?_

       "It is not my job to decide what is truth of not," he managed to grunt, "the jury does that!"

       Self-evaluation should be left to the philosophers, and he was no philosopher.  He knew that much.  He was a lawyer who wanted to keep things simple.

       "I don't care what you do for a living; it is your job to be honest to yourself!" she screamed back.

       "I only fabricate the truth," he insisted. "The jury decides what they want to believe."

       _In the end, "right" and "wrong" are just labels.  One sign was as good as the other._

       "Truth can't be fabricated; only lies can," Rinoa objected.

       "I think you are confusing my duties with the agenda of a politician," Zen sneered.  "They get paid to tell the opposite of what they are thinking.  I don't even get paid to tell what I think."

       "Then you can't even be true to yourself," she scoffed in return.  "How can you fabricate something out of materials that you don't have?"

       "What are you trying to say?" Zen demanded to know.  "That I can't be honest to myself?"

       "I think you've been lying to yourself the whole time," Rinoa hissed while looking at him straight in the eye.

       "Then why do you even what to know what I think?" he snapped.

       "Because I want to hear your opinion, not your presentation," she explained earnestly to justify her request.

       "Why does it matter?" Zen asked.

       "Because it is important," she stated firmly.

       _Well that makes one of us_, the man decided.

       "No it is not," he pronounced and began to gather his belongings together so he could leave.  She had wasted enough of his time and the bill to her father would reflect it.

       _W__hy can't they help themselves these days?_ he asked himself exasperatedly.  _Why do I always have to help them?_

       Were it in his power to have the entire occupation retired for good, it would have been accomplished.  It never failed – whether it was about decision-making or problem solving, whenever he had a moment to spare for himself, there was always another voice crying out and appealing for his help.  Did it ever occur to anyone else that he might not enjoy saving them as much as they liked being saved?  Did they ever consider that he might have better things to do?  That he might want to live his own life and not be responsible for everyone else?

       "No, uncle Zen," she insisted, catching his wrist as the first traces of tears formed in her eyes, "it is to me.  I need to know."

       _Please answer me_, she yearned inside.

       Something about how strained her voice sounded made him pause and take pity on her.  The shift in attitude was gradual.  After a few moments, his ominously-arched eyebrows had drooped to a fairly approachable level.

       _She is just a girl after all, Zen_, he kept telling himself.

       Zen sighed and craned his neck back to look at the ivory ceiling panels.  _And she needs to know_.

       He looked back at her and nodded.  _Yes, I believe your mother was telling the truth_.

       Having admitted his true opinion, for which he felt slightly disoriented, Zen packed the papers in his bag and turned to leave.

       "Not so fast," Rinoa's stern voice checked him.

       Zen's muscles tensed and he gritted his teeth.

       "I want a kiss first," she demanded and arched her eyebrows like she meant it.

       Zen frowned a very serious frown.  If he was lucky, she would not resort to setting her hands on her hips and manifest what he considered to be the epitome of obstinate stances.

       In response, Rinoa gave him one of her nastiest looks before transforming herself back into a smiling, little angel and then leaned forward to receive his kiss.

       He sighed and grudgingly pecked her on the forehead.

       "See?" Rinoa said.  "That wasn't so bad now was it?"

       "I think I'm going to have to borrow some of your father's mouthwash," the other replied, wiping his mouth disgustedly on the sleeve of his coat.  Then he turned away from the stunned girl and walked towards the exit.  After taking a few steps in that direction, he halted.

       "Does your father strike you as a religious man?" Zen inquired randomly, not taking the time to turn around and face her.

       "Not really," Rinoa replied, not yet recuperated from his previous slur.  _When he strikes me, he is military man with a bat.  All soldier, no father._

       "Why do you ask?" she added verbally once she began thinking straight.

       Zen either did not hear the latter part of her sentence or forgot to answer because he merely returned, "I didn't think so either."

       He shrugged and walked the remaining distance to the door.

       "Are you trying to be cryptic?" she reproached, her innards beginning to boil.

       "No," he answered with an exaggerated, sardonic nod.

       "Why do you have to be so difficult?" Rinoa carped.  "I can't ever talk to you!"

       "It must be the language barrier," he suggested dryly.  If she could not catch the exorbitant amount of sarcasm in his voice, then he might have to train Angelo to speak English and converse with the pet in her stead, in the event that he found himself seeking a decent conversation.

       Before she could respond, he had opened the door, stepped through it, and shut it again.

       "Come to the kitchen when you're hungry," he called to her from the outside, audibly locking the door.  "I'll leave the key right out here."

       _He did that on purpose! _she realized, giving out a miffed gasp.

       Rinoa stomped the ground with her bare feet, dismissing the caution she usually took to avoid stubbing her toes.  Without the protection offered by the shoes she longer possessed, having discharged them out the window at Dabel and Cary Kay's heads, jamming some of the joints was inevitable.

       _That infuriating, impossible man!_ she fumed, too incensed to heed the throbbing in her foot.

       She reached for something to hurl at the door.  Without her realizing it, her hands were already gravitating towards the General's desk.  The first thing Rinoa got her hands on was _The Psychology of the Galbadian Justice System_.  She noted how aerodynamic the publisher had designed it to be as it whistled through the air.  Unfortunately it veered left at the last minute and missed the door completely.

       She was not through yet, or, rather, she did not want to be through yet.  There had to more options available to her; her pockets might very well afford her some keys, loose change, or other metallic trinkets.

       But Rinoa did not have pockets, nor had she any keys to her house.  The latter deficit was due wholly to the fact that walking back through the front door of Caraway's mansion had never been a lifelong dream of hers; rather, her goal had been more like the opposite.  As for loose change, without the pocket, it was another impossibility.  All she had was her father's credit card tucked neatly between her skin and her skirt, but even Rinoa knew that it would reach its terminal velocity and decelerate long before it could even reach the door.  She would be better off just throwing a feather in his direction.

       Her shoes!  Rinoa lifted her leg to strip it.

       _Crap!_  she cursed silently.  _No shoes!  Diablos take Cary Kay for making me throw them at her!_

       The surrogate projectile turned out to be a silver-plated marble paperweight that the Farnam Metalwork Industries awarded him for saving one of their factories from a fire when he was young.  It landed in trashcan two feet off to the right of where she had intended to launch it.

       It was still not enough.  The torch within her was unappeased and demanded yet another sacrifice.  The evil, evil lawyer had badmouthed her and she was not happy about it.  She had to break something to redeem herself.  It would make her feel better, and therefore she had every right to break something.  It made perfect sense to her so it should definitely make perfect sense to everyone else.  Anyone who did not see that she was justified for her every action, well, she would break them too.

       The tabletop furnished her with a green cigarette pack next.  Her father's, she presumed.  From how quickly it had taken Squall to take a liking to smoking them, she guessed that they were highly addictive – possibly more addictive than love.

       She sighed sadly.  She had not minded that he smoked.  The odor was a small price to pay to be within arm's length of him.  She hardly minded whatever nuisances he could devise anymore, and if he told her that he would never see her again if she did not start smoking herself, then she would do it.  Anything was better than the complete deprivation of his company.  A little stench and mist was insignificant.  But if only he would raise her to his lips and drink her in as deeply as he did with his smokes.  She craved just that little bit of attention, but apparently they had her beat.  He had fallen in love with them and they could go by his side wherever he ventured.

       She had never thought to equate them to compact, convenient, portable packets of Squall's love before.  Rinoa blinked, realizing that Squall had never picked up anything faster in his life.  That made her jealous, which meant she and the Malboro case were enemies.  Her new relationship with the cigarette pack gave her the drive she needed to fling it towards the doorway.

       Rinoa looked around frantically for another shell to catapult.  She had nothing with which to work and the easy chair was too heavy for her to lift, yet she could not just stand there and watch her father's stupid lawyer get away with vilifying her in every way possible.  The zero and three count for her aim simply would not stand.

       _The insufferable fiend!  He is not going to get away with it._

       She promised herself that vindication would be hers or she would never rest.  With that mentality, she picked up the only thing in the room that was not bolted down and was not too heavy for her to lift, and threw it against the door – herself.  In her moment of madness, she was convinced that Rinoa the wrecking ball was a sound idea and the key to solving all of her problems.

       Even before she slammed into the door, though. she came to her senses.  Too late she drew her arms up to cushion the force of the collision, recalling to mind the density, tensile force, index of ductility, ultimate force, and miscellaneous facts pertaining to the structural integrity of oak that she learned from the home carpentry workshops customary of Trinity School for Ladies of Galbadia Thursdays.  Most importantly, she remembered that the hinges were on her side of the door, making it that much harder for her to successfully break the door down.  Quite the opposite of her hopes, the door broke her velocity and sent her to the floor with a muffled cry.  The furniture in the room jarred slightly at impact but the sturdy wooden portal persevered.

       Aside from the bruises on her hands and knees, Rinoa had garnered a nasty bruise on her forehead.  However, face down in the grimy carpet fuzz, she had no time to distress or agonize about the contusion or how it pulsated – the darkness seized her almost immediately and led her off into the world of dreams.

       She had collapsed onto something hard.  It was a fairly uncomfortable feeling – one that fell between the classifications of itchy and disgusting.  Her mouth and nose was replete with it.  Whatever the material, she was willing to wager all the clothes on her back without even blinking that it was direly filthy and would take more than three extra-strength, full-body lather and rinse cycles to purge from her skin and extricate from her hair.  As for the actual blinking itself, she dared not even open her eyes.

       She wanted to cry.  After taking such good care of herself and responsibly restricting her diet, she was about to lose it all because of this grunge!  How could anyone expect her to meet Squall face to face like that?  Squall would never have it; the fair skin, the perfume, the softness, the smoothness – they all mattered to him.  How could she have been so clumsy, trying to throw herself through the door without a contingency plan for a soft landing?

       _No, wait_, she caught herself in recognition of the feeling she felt when she hit the floor, _I'm still here, aren't I?  Is this a dream?_

       Even as she asked herself that question, she was startled by a new revelation that ran full tilt into her: The thought had been hers, but the voice in her head had been different.  It was hoarse, masculine, deep, but insecure.  So she was not lying in her father's room that the for the past decade.  She was lying somewhere else.

       She was also lying in something else altogether.  Sand was a good guess.  There was also some salt present.  Salty sand – that was what she was taking a bath in.  If she did not move soon, it would take all the moisture out of her face and leave her as wrinkled as a dried raisin undergoing accelerated aging.

       Rinoa began to cry; she did not want to be a senior-citizen prune.

       Try as she might though, not a single drop came out.  It was more frustrating to not be able to cry than to be forced to cry.  How she had no control over her tears was a mystery to her before she realized that she was no longer herself.  Their experiences were tantamount but she could only witness what he did.

       In a phrase, she was locked into the point where vicarious and palpable sensations met.

       He did not seem to mind the sand a hundredth of a percent as much.  Quite the contrary, he seemed almost relieved to feel it resting against his skin; the swim back had been much more tiring and infinitely less exhilarating than his shoving off.

       _Land…land! _he rejoiced in his heart, for he had returned to its side in one piece.

       At last he was home.  It did not matter that he was drenched, cold, and shivering, so long as he was out of harm's reach and secure in the arms of heaven-graced deliverance. 

       Finally able to lay his tired limbs to rest, he grunted, "Arrrgh," and grew still.

       The darkness seized him almost immediately, after which Rinoa saw no more.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	21. Setting 18: 0716 DAY 16, Trabia Coastbor...

Setting 18: 0716 DAY 16, Trabia Coast-bordering Forests 

_"All human things are subject to decay,_

_And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey."_

-Dryden, John

_Mac Flecknoe _I

        _"A_rrrgh," Zell croaked weakly as he slowly came back to life.

       He felt as if his vertebrae had doubled in number overnight.  He was also having trouble turning his head from side to side on account of how he must have strained his neck muscles by resting his head at an unnatural angle during his sleep.  The ground had not been the most hospitable surface on which to rest, and his bones did not try to conceal how sore they felt from having stayed there against their will.  Had it been possible, his skeleton would have just walked back to the Garden and left Zell lying there, itself emotionally detached from any sense of loss or remorse.

       Zell took a rare minute to wonder how he usually woke up.  To the best of his foggy recollection, before his egression from Balamb to fight Ultimecia, Mina usually provided the reminder and exigency for him to wake up in her own pleasant, if sadistic, way.  It had only taken him a handful of mornings to figure out that she would climb on top of his chest to impede his breathing, pinch his nostrils shut, and then clamp her lips over his own in a truly suffocating kiss.  When he was out of oxygen, he would stir himself up.   She was light to be enough to be thrown off the bed once he sat up, and proceed to chew him out if he did not realize what he was doing and catch her in time before she ended up on the floor.  Personally he believed that Mina liked being roughed up because she repeated the procedure every morning, but it took a sturdy heart on his part to live with this organic alarm clock that doubled as a murder device each night.

       Once he discovered what she was up to, he flipped out and reprimanded her for taking such a dangerous and unnecessary gamble with his life – not that she took any of it to heart.  In the end, Zell found himself bereft of grounds on which to argue as she did not buy his claim to have not enjoyed it.  At the suggestion of using one or both of his ears alternative airways for her to block, she only jeered that she would wind up with a candle when she pulled out her tongue, which made him even more self-conscious.

       It took an enormous amount of labor for him to sit up, a task that his waist, receiving no cooperation from his brick-heavy upper torso, had to stomach alone.  It felt as if he had to rise with Mina straddling him, the catch being that she had gained enough weight to make Ward balk.  Towards the end of this traumatic episode, it occurred to him how it would be so much easier on him to execute the basic maneuver if he had a fresh supply of energy, an actual incentive to get up, an arrangement of pulleys latched to a team of oxen, his wits about him, motors skills that were not impaired, all the time in the world, and a brand new back – spinal cord included, eighty-year guarantee, and no assembly required.  It took less time than it took to him to force himself to his feet for him to realize that none of these desired conditions were fulfilled.

       _Why in the world did I get up then?_ Zell asked himself.

       _I dunno_, replied his mind.

       _Should I just flop back down again then? _he wondered.

       _Um…_ his brain paused to think.  _I defer my decision-making authority to-_

       "Come on," he interrupted the thought by rapping his head with his knuckle, "Wake up, Zell."

       _Yeah_, his left-brain teased the right and administered a mental kick, _snap to it!_

       Zell quickly switched to another line of thinking and focused on getting back home before he was made an unwilling spectator to the internecine fistfight between the two sides of his brain.  Had he remained tuned in to their frequency and suffered witnessing the entire brawl, he would have inevitably relapsed into a vegetative coma until the end of his days.

       _What is the point of having a healthy, young body if I cannot move around in it?_ he asked himself rhetorically.

       His legs felt very weak.  It would take an estimated three hours of additional training to get him back in top shape.  A personal fitness schedule laxer by any degree would surely jeopardize his chances at beating Squall in the break-dancing battle at the upcoming Nova Trabia masked ball.  Even though he hardly ever revealed it, the Commander was holding a pair of aces over kings between the ballroom dance steps that Quistis had taught him and his own street hop.  It vexed Zell to have to acknowledge even one event in which Squall proved to be more athletic than he.

       Zell landed a punch in his free palm and cracked his knuckles in good humor.  It was going to be one hell of a match, and he could hardly stand the suspense.  The whole notion of the contest even taking place, though, was held in the good faith that Rinoa's auspices would be smiling upon Squall that night and that she would allow him to participate.  Rinoa's caprice and spasmodic mood swings made her mandatory blessing of the event a very precarious proviso to ensure was met; quite frankly it was just madness to keep the anticipation of a great break-dancing battle around in one's head.  The first defect of optimism was its prematurity.  The second was its inadequacy to deliver.

       He never could figure out how Rinoa's mind worked.  The complexity of her language vied with that of a Linear C yet to be discovered by man and for whose jargon no single Rosetta Stone could illuminate by itself.  Her native tongue knew only idioms, colloquialisms, abbreviations, antiquated conventions, and bastardizations.

       Deep within Zell, a faint feeling stirred.  He decided that it had to be his pity for Squall.  Zell could hardly claim that he was jealous of the Commander's predicament; in some ways he was grateful that Mina was not as troublesome as Rinoa.  In other ways she was, though.

       _At least_ _Rinoa doesn't just run off without telling anyone where she is headed_, he conceded.

       It was then that Zell realized that the gnawing sentiment he felt was not just pity for Squall, but for himself as well.  He too had his share of girl trouble, worries, and headaches.  It made him mad to realize that he was worrying about her because it recalled to mind the frustrating adage of Ma Dincht about how one could not be worried by other things; rather one willfully rendered himself the worrywart.  Indeed, it did not make much sense to him how deep down, he actually wanted to worry about her, but it was clear that his life would not be the same without the call for concern to his object of affection.  Was she really so heartless as to deprive him of his dream to care for her and condemn him to his pitiable station as the derelict darling?

       _Who knew what is racing through their heads anyway? _Zell pondered._  What could possibly explain the way they act sometimes?_

       As the years passed, humanity had taken to calling their irrationality their 'mystique.'  To be enigmatic had become attractive; to be impossible was now arousing.  All the while, it was unfeasible to comprehend their motives well enough to fit them into a model with which to predict their next move.  Any signals they emanated were unreadable or too badly distorted to be broken down and deciphered correctly by logicians, mathematicians, or psychological slicers.  Every woman spoke and thought in a dialect different from her male counterpart.  It was one of Hyne's biggest jokes.  Zell would not be surprised if their brains ran along diametrically opposite paths, their minds revolving around perpendicular axes, their reasoning traveling along separate, skewed lines.  Maybe it was finally time for Zell to admit to himself what the locked door Mina posed really stood for – a dead end.  He had no magical key into her world on his pathetic key ring.  It was probably best for him to stop lying to himself.

       Yet it seemed so unfair that she held his key and exercised no moderation in flashing it in front of his face all the time.  Somehow she seemed to know exactly how and when to sneak up on him.  He figured it was not that hard of a task considering that her timing and manner were not as important so long as her presence was there.  That last aspect alone was probably more than enough to stimulate the internal flutters he felt.  She truly was a walking bundle of love and joy that induced the good kind of heart attacks in him.  He found himself longing for it, making it more a psychological request than a cardiovascular arrest.

       But she was gone now, and her absence tore his heart to pieces.  It would be difficult to concentrate on his daily duties bereft of his emotional essential.  He also had to deal with the vexation of knowing that she was probably having the time of her life with the other guy.

       Zell's jaw tensed and the hair on the back of his neck bristled at the mere thought.  He relaxed one of his reflexively-clenched fists, uncurling it so as to reach down into his pocket and draw out the portentous photograph.  From the way it was crumpled, Zell guessed that he had turned over more than once during the night.  He tried to straighten out all of the folds.

       The trivial task proved to be a challenge for the stiff-fingered fighter because he went out of his way to avoid smearing any part of Mina in the photograph; he loved her too much to touch her.  Just the opposite, he loathed the other man so much that he struggled to not to get his fingers anywhere near the bastard.  Even if he could forgive himself for dirtying his fingers on that man's image, his spirit would not.  He could conceivably cleanse his hands with soap, but his soul would feel forever sullied and he would know the difference.  Frankly Zell had no interest in playing around in a self-destructive, guilt-trip whirlpool.  Thus, with the mentality to avoid this fashion of eternal self-condemnation, Zell drudged through an excessively long period of awkwardness but finally managed with the help of his chin and elbows to smooth out the photo, on which there were only a few spots not occupied by either Mina or her new lover.

       Having seen to its being relatively flattened out, Zell took a figurative step back to gawk at the couple.  He bemoaned the fact that it would have looked so much better if he had been in the stranger's place.  Perhaps he could convince Selphie to scan the picture and digitally alter it so as to insert his own image beside Mina, but that that would require him to show her the photo and incite a bombardment of questioning looks and source next month's richest topic of gossip.  It was in his best interests to wait patiently until the stranger stumbled into his hands, after which he could sort out this affair internally by pounding the living daylights out of the home-wrecker.

       _You lucked out this time, thief_, Zell contemplated.

       He picked up his feet and began his long walk home.  The morning air had yet to grow tepid, but the midnight mustiness still lingered in the wake.  Albeit it would be no big problem to get back to the Garden before noon, at which point the temperature in the humid jungle would pick up some intolerable thirty degrees as was accustomed this time of year, but he did not want to take any chances; it was perfectly possible to run into another Blue Dragon, and, in the light, he would not be able to resort to his tactics of stealth as he had done the previous evening.

       The muck that Zell had run through then was more waterlogged than he had guessed.  Instead of leaving a trail of footprints for him to retrace, the impressions were obscured by the displaced mud the moment he lifted his foot each step of the way.  As the black sky no longer loomed overhead, the Garden's beacon was virtually invisible, meaning that he could not check his direction.  Realizing that it was impossible to detect the light against the blue and white horizon, Zell changed his course and began to head for the beach, the only destination that could guarantee his way out of the forest and into a clearing.  From the Trabia shore he could, going along the forest perimeter, work his way back to Nova Trabia.

       The rumble of waves was faint but discernible.  As easy a task as it was to follow his ears, Zell's heart leapt when the washing sound against the sand intensified, meaning that he was on the right track.  His trekking grew brisker the closer he felt he was to breaching the remains of the verdant expanse and gaining the fresh shore.  The imperative variation of scenery was long overdue, and this SeeD had no intention of prolonging the translation of landscapes with his sluggishness.  He pushed on with added vigor and the self-confidence of one who had not any mud stains still garnishing his pants.  After another few minutes, he reached the threshold.

       Nature seemed to halt in her steps and grow quiet for a second before Zell burst through the last row of bark and squinted under the sun's sudden flood of brilliance.  When he could fully open his eyes again, he saw that he had successfully traded off the green for the white-decked blue.  The crags rested to his right, and the beach water snored invitingly in front of him.  Zell let loose a wild, war hoot and charged the coast, shedding the last of the pine forest scent and leaving it for future transcendentalists, naturalists, or recluses more appreciative of the environs than he was, to grapple with.

       The sea air blasting against his face was refreshing for about as long as he could ignore the sand that had happily found a home in his sneakers.  How those insidious little specks of annoyance managed to creep into his footwear, he had no idea, but to deter any more of their friends from moving in and having a party under his heel, Zell forced himself to penguin-waddle through the rest of the sand bunker until he was standing beside the shallow tide.

       The crisp, cool water promised to provide a light-feeling lather on his neck, an activity that for the time being would be able to get his mind off of the silicon shards slipping between his toes and frustrating his attempts to get comfortable.  What Zell really wanted to do was tear off his shoes and fling them into the sea where they would do well to flounder and sink, bereft of any internal air pockets that might buoy them up to where they could bob on the surface in defiance of his greatness.  If, however, they recalcitrantly refused to sink to the bottom of the ocean and take the nettling grains with them, he would be justified to Dolphin Blow the targets to shreds.

       The soothing temperature of the water doused the anger steaming from his head and stayed his hand, which in retrospect he realized was a good thing because his sneakers were technically still brand new.  The silky film left by the retreating waves did not provide the static, reflective surface he sought, so Zell walked along the shore until he came across a puddle of seawater deposited in a serration on the banks.  He bent down and stared intently at his mirror image.

       "Whoa," Zell marveled apprehensively.

       The night in the forest had taken more than just a toll on his back – it had also severely punished his hairdo.  The top of his head looked as grizzled as if it had gnawed on by a pack of starving wombats.  As much as he hated to admit it, for once the hairstyle in which he prided himself for sporting was dragging him down.  The sight was truly that embarrassing.  There was nothing of the majestic, cock-like plume, the mere sight of which could trumpet his entrance and buy him the right to parade his influence, prestige, and masculinity before the world.  The best he could hope for now was that the people could be convinced that some crazed topiarist went through his hair with a weed-whacker.  With those odds, he wondered if it was propitious for him and his public image to return to Garden without some fixing up first.  Maybe no one would be so judgmental as to shackle him down to the floor of disrepute and unfashionableness based on first impressions.

       "Fat chance," he grumbled, guessing that in all likelihood his frazzled face would end up on the front page of the faculty newspaper.

       He sighed and looked mournfully at his reflection again.  He checked his gnarled crown from each viable angle before recoiling in abhorrence.  It was all so emasculating.  The dereliction of a feature so rudimentarily integral to his identity would cripple his status and stigmatize his person as if he had fallen from grace through an ejection by divinity.  He wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

       If he had been serious, he would have started digging.  Luckily for Zell, he had spotted the silver lining and realized that the temporary defect on his head could still be emended.

       "Better mousse it down before anyone recognizes me," he said aloud and began splashing water over the warring streaks of blonde and brown.

       He figured that if the pretense of grooming could preclude any criticism that might undermine his reputation, then it was well worth the time he would have to spend in the shower scrubbing out the thick smell of brine and fish from his hair.  In the meantime the stench would tolerable until he could make it back to his room and shower.  The officers' quarters in Nova Trabia Garden had been pre-selected for construction close to the main entrance on the first floor, opposite of the 'Garden Ricebox' and the corridor that led to their lounge.  As early as it seemed in the day, he could probably gain the solace of his private chambers without having to the wade through the usual first period traffic of students.  The fact that most of the Garden's classrooms were built on the second floor would minimize the number of trainees whose eyebrows would be raised after getting a whiff of him while he dodged past them in the hallway.  Of course, he would have to wallop them in afternoon gym class if any of them brought it up then.

       It took Zell a few tries and frequent checks in the puddle's reflection before he recaptured the look that he wanted.  Afterwards, he ran his fingers along his cheeks and chin to feel the stubble of a beard already besieging his boyish countenance.  He shrugged off the distaste, judging that another hour of not shaving would not kill him.

       "Am I sexy or what?" he gloated instead, grinning exaggeratedly to check his teeth.

       _'Or what' is right_, his inner voice piped in.

       "Who asked you?" Zell challenged indignantly, evidently upset by the unsolicited intrusion.

       _Well, someone has to say something meaningful once in a while_, was the retort.  _It's not like I like this job any more than you like listening to me.  Sometimes I just wish you would act smart on your own for like twelve hours so I could take a day off, but I don't see that happening anytime soon because your IQ is as inert as a brick in the side of a building.  You are unbelievable, you know that?  I have to freaking supervise you even while you sleep because your closing your eyes does not render you any less of a danger to yourself.  How in the world did I get stuck with an assignment like this?  Did I wrong you in my past life?  I doubt it, so forgive me when I seem a little cranky because I work both day and night shifts with no bathroom breaks!  Chump. _

       "Okay, okay," Zell reacted defensively, "I get the picture, but when are you going to get off my back about that?"

       _The day you stop acting like you have a bad case of the stupids_, was the retort_._

       "Oh great," Zell muttered.  "Now my own head is treating me for stupidity as if it were a disease."

       _If it were up to me, I would have had you locked up long ago_, his mind pronounced callously.

       "Thanks for the vote of confidence," Zell remarked sourly.  "It sure is nice to know that someone out there believes in me."

       The neat idea of escaping this conversation with himself by deserting the pool and leaving his thoughts with his mirror image occurred to him.  He took one last look at his reflection before getting to his feet and recommencing his journey along the beach.

       _This isn't exactly the best job in the world.  In fact, it doesn't even come close_, his inner thoughts rang.  _What are the perks of this job?  A shabby health care package that barely covers the family of mine that I have not seen in seventeen years.  No vacation, no sick leave, no accommodations, no chance for promotion, and no Christmas bonus.  Oh, and how could I forget – the pure joy and gratefulness I feel to work with you 24-7.  Most employees would count the fact that there is no competition on the job market for this station as a good thing, but for me that is the bane of my life.  Heck, I don't even get an attractive secretary.  And what have I to look forward to?  Sixty more years before your senility comes to relieve me, and the miserable pension won't get me by half of the year with the expenses my luxurious lifestyle necessitates.  And all the while, I am worried to death that the board in their renowned judiciousness will give me tenure to this Godforsaken position!_

       "I heard your grievances the first time," stressed Zell as he broke into a run.  His ploy to desert the wise-ass voice was not working, and every new word spoken added a brick weight to his stomach.

       _Just my luck! _the voice continued.  _My mother warned me about getting a job in consulting because she was certain that it would never amount to anything more than pain and anguish.  I have applied for transfers to all of the major cities but they never answer.  Why couldn't the board have stuck me with Quistis, Selphie, or Rinoa?  I could be sunbathing on the beach and advising any one of them on which part of their nubile bodies and luscious skin to rub the lotion-_

       "Hey!" Zell interjected.  "We love Mina, remember?"

       _Oh yeah_, it recalled without the slightest trace of excitement in its tone, _her_.  _Psssh_.

       "Well," Zell replied, "she is kind of important to me so I would appreciate it if you did you best to remain civil when you mention her."

       His mind ignored him and pressed, _What is so good about her?  From what I have seen so far, the only thing noteworthy is how adept she is at getting your hopes up._

       "You know," Zell commented, stepping over a conch shell, "I read that you only exist to help me become aware of what I want."

       _What is your point?_ replied his consciousness impatiently.

       "Get with the program," Zell stated simply.  "If you are going to channel my desires, you should know that Mina would keep me happy for the rest of my life."

_       Where did you read all of that?_ it asked skeptically.

       "Sartre," Zell replied, "and it would not hurt you to look it over yourself."

       _Well_, , _you are just going to have to accept the sad fact that Sartre was confused.  I act in my own best interests.  I look out for number one, and I do what I do to get what I want._

       "No," corrected Zell, "you mean what I want."

       _No_, it repeated with a tone reeking of pretentiousness, _I meant what I want_.

       "You have it all wrong," Zell scoffed, shaking his head and dismissing the line of thought all together.

       _Well then, maybe I'll just decide to forgot that I am conscious of you and you'll cease to exist_, the voice threatened.  _I really would have no problem with an early retirement._

       "Ha!" Zell countered sharply.  "You are part of my For-Itself, so if I die, you disappear too!"

       _Are you one hundred percent sure about that?_ his mind checked him.  _Who says that consciousness has to be finite?  If I asked you to guess how many lifetimes I have lived and who I had to possess the last time around, what would you say to that?_

       "Some kind of activist, lobbyist or union demagogue," guessed Zell.  "I mean, you complain more than anyone I know.  More than me, even."

       _Was that an attempt to be clever?_ the voice prodded condescendingly.  _Because if it was, you had better get your facts straight, buster.  The 'I' and 'me' you used to refer to yourself are technically just modes through which I can obtain what I desire on your materialistic, perceived world.  I am not your anything, not your conscience, because there is no "you."  I am merely a consciousness of you._

       Zell did not answer, figuring that it would leave him alone if he just concentrated on his running and ignored it.  He focused instead on the ringing of his monotonous steps and the feeling derived from the slight skidding against the wet grit, the occasional lapping of the waves against the side of his sneakers, and the dirt thrown up by the soles of the shoes as he pushed off, head in the wind.

       The pink horizon was brightening nicely into a fulsome yellow.  Having lost its shyness long ago, the sun threw off the veil of the ocean and began flaunting itself in all of its splendor.  Zell mushed on, proud that his heart was strong enough to regulate his pulse to a rate slower than his strides'.  His trusted shadow raced along beside him, bobbin up and down, as protean as the texture of undulating topography he left behind.

       "You know," he finally remarked, "if we are both parts of the For-Itself, don't you think it is about time we began acting in some mutually beneficial interests?"

       _What for?  _the other asked suspiciously.  _And _cui bono_?_

       "To add new meaning in this life," Zell clarified, "and to instill it where there was none before."

       _Add new meaning to your life? _the voice scoffed in feigned humor.  _Now is _that_ my function?  What have I been doing all these years?  So _that's _the missing part of me!  That's why I feel I have been feeling so incomplete lately._

There no was mistaking the sarcasm and contempt in the voice.  For a minute Zell felt devoid of its presence and rationalized dejectedly that it had gone off somewhere to roll around and laugh its ass off.  Still, it was a refreshing hiatus between insults.  Realizing this, Zell dropped his guise of glumness and settled down to take advantage of the reprieve from being the shooting gallery of his own consciousness.

       _Hey, how about this for meaning?_ it broke back into his head and suggested.  _You're a chump.  Digest that!_

       "Yeah, that was what I was talking about," Zell commented dryly.

       _You're confused_, his consciousness summed up.

       "Like Sartre?" sneered Zell.

       _Like Sartre_, it concurred.

       "Then you're obviously not doing a very good job," Zell analyzed.

       _Be still my beating heart_, his inner voice bemoaned exaggeratedly.

       More realistically it added, _I can sleep at night because I know that no one else would fight me for this position, no matter how badly I manage it._

       Up to his throat in resentment, it was an understatement to say that Zell was getting fed up with the mock sarcasm.

       He lashed out, "What I don't get is that you are supposed to be a non-personal and non-reflective consciousness, but it don't act like it at all!"

       _Yeah, so? _his mind countered mockingly.

       "Non-reflective means that you cannot take yourself as an object!" Zell conjectured, voice rising with his excitement; it was all coming together now.  "You are not supposed to be conscious that you are conscious!  That is your pre-reflective ego's job."

       His consciousness grew silent and seemed to consider the argument laid before its feet.

       _Ack!_ it suddenly choked, realizing that it had been defeated.

       "I hereby banish you!" Zell cried triumphantly with a clap of his hands to mark the end of the hard-won philosophical debate.

       _A curse on both your houses!_ the little voice screamed and vanished with a blip.

       Zell smirked and walked with a new bounce in his step.  He replayed each line from memory and beamed with pride at the revisitation of the denouement where he had laid down the sinker.

       "That ought to hold him at bay for another day or two before he finds a loophole in the wording of the phenomenology," he told himself.

       Zell slowed to a stop and turned for a second to admire the surreal view, all the while continuing to run in place so as not to lose his rhythm or elevated heartbeat.  How the water naturally took turns flowing both ways seemed so organized, and yet so organic.  It made him feel like the child he wanted to be again who could waddle through the water with no repercussions and not the man with rounds to make and a class to head in the afternoon.  It was best that he get going again.

       "What the-"

       He caught the glint of something reflective of the sun's rays at the corner of his left eye, tucked a small distance from the edge of the overhanging promontory.  There was no way that any individual speck of silicon on the beach could give off so lustrous a sparkle, a fact that urged him to check out the anomaly.  The twinkle could have been sourced from an enemy soldier's armor, the lens of a sniper rifle, or even worse, the canines of a wandering dragon.  Or it could just be a glass bottle carelessly littered on the otherwise immaculate landscape.  Before he had visual confirmation though, from this point on, it was best to proceed with the acme of caution.

       Zell quickly threw himself down in the lee of a nearby sand dune.  If the danger from above was a shooter, it was best that he remain out of his line of sight.  In all probability, Zell had been spotted already.  The only reason no shot had been fired was that he was out of range.  Lying flat against the white mound, Zell looked to his left and right and tried to find a route he could take that would offer him full cover as he circled back around in a wide arc.  That way he could conceal his position from further monitoring, and, hopefully, gain a sneak attack on the rival scout if he was cautious enough to prevent his own discovery along the way.

       The combination of initial fear and corollary curiosity was inductive of a keen sense of excitement, and so, without further persuasion, Zell ducked down low and ran from the base of one white hill to the next, beginning his long journey to circle around his adversary's possession.  "Outflank for the Preemptive Attack" was one of the rules he recalled from Trepe's Handbook of Military Tactics.  He would have to remember to thank Quistis for finally coming up with something that was actually applicable to real life situations.

       Now that he actually thought about it, Zell frowned at how little sense it still made to him that Headmaster would have demoted Quistis from SeeD instructor status at Balamb all those weeks back.  He never got the whole story because it inappropriate to solicit her side of it and risk reopening a wound that must have been a hell to heal thus far.  Zell had always prided himself in being competent with counting numbers, but this just did not add up.  It seemed unlikely that Quistis would take the fall for Seifer voluntarily, and knowing his errant and erratic behavior, Cid could hardly have coerced her into doing so.  If the Balamb Garden Department of Student Insurance was unwilling to cover Seifer's health and well being, then it was unreasonable to make Quistis responsible for his actions.

       Zell wondered briefly how Seifer and Raijin had formerly landed positions on the Disciplinary Committee in Balamb.  Was it an artful attempt by the Headmaster to curb Seifer's mischief-making by artificially instilling a sense of work ethic in his already overflowing ego, or just another endeavor, seasoned with a zest of craziness customary of all of Cid's crooked antics, to incorporate the age-old aphorism of "fighting fire with fire"?

       Zell shook his head.  The Headmaster was as insane as he was complicated.  Cid Kramer thought in circles; with him, it was never a direct, linear neural pathway that connected a point of intention to a point of action.  Rather it was only through a roundabout road of reasoning comprised of multiple twists and discoveries that one could trace his orders back to his motives.  With that in mind, it must have been irksome for Edea to hand herself over to him at the altar when she probably did not know any of the real reasons why he wanted to take her as his bride.  Like all women, Edea probably spoke her own dialect based on the mystifying Linear C and to put her in the same home with the cryptic Cid was to warrant for years a noteworthy debacle and basic breakdown of functional communication in the history of human language.  One had to stop and think what sort of divinity would purposely build so volatile a time bomb and humor in its inevitable, internecine outcome.

       One day, when he was the Headmaster, Zell was going to marry a pretty girl far too good for him too, and then lounge around, reveling in his girth, dispensing antiquated aphorisms and enigmatic orders at random, and have them be falsely mistaken as words far superior and ingenious for comprehension by any mere subordinate, as he was rightly entitled to.  Misplaced reverence for a façade of sagacity was the privilege of senility, after all.

       Zell sighed.  The thought of marriage had revived the ache in his heart for the long overdue and whom he felt was at current the largely displaced Mina of the pigtails.  He almost did not care about the other man in the picture, the fling in which she had broken from him, her boyfriend, to indulge.  Now, staring straight into the eyes of death, his own life hanging in the balance, all he could do was worry about her and wonder helplessly if she shared his fate.  He had not heard from her since she just parted from him over two weeks ago, and he needed more than that to know that she was at least okay.  Silence would not do, but just a few words from her rosy lips would let him rest worlds easier.  If she was happy with her new lover, that was fine; if she was not, so much the better.

       But he was digressing from where he should be appropriating his attention – trying to keep his head from getting shot off.  Zell loved every part of head and he loved where it sat on his neck just as much.  It was be a damned shame if he would let some rookie shooter get lucky and pop it off, especially after he spent so much time in front of his reflection in the puddle to smooth each delinquent hair back into its set position so as to optimize his visual charm.  If the gunner was going to blow Zell's head off, he could at least have had the decency to do it before the intricate art, and it was an art, had been performed to completion.  It would be an insult if one's motherland spent millions of Gil on negotiators and airlifts to reconcile with and return all of her defectors, only so they could be taken down by another country's anti-aircraft missiles on the way back.  Zell was not about to lose face to an Irvine wannabe who wanted to score big with a cheap shot.

       The edge of the beach was drawing to a close with the beginnings of the grass plain peeping out from under its sandy blanket.  Zell crept to the peak of the last mound and peered over it.  There was no visible movement from the cliff, no sign of activity that would have been noticeable had they been able to follow and detect his movements.  He had successfully navigated around behind their keep and the path looked clear.  He methodically surveyed the target area and searched for men, vehicles, and other machinery, as well as telltale signs and markings that could give away the enemy's identity.

       To his surprise, the land seemed amazingly flat and devoid of life all the way up to the cliff edge.  In all probability though, if there had been a sniper, he would have been lying flat on the ground with his rifle in hand.  Zell knew there was something metallic or crystalline in the vicinity, which would attest for the flash of light he had gotten a glimmer of.

       "Where are you?" Zell whispered under his breath with impatience.

       Just then, in the process of visually scrolling from left to right, his eyes caught something out of the ordinary.  A stationary object standing in a lopsided position about thirty meters out and four degrees off to the left.  He was too far away to discern exactly what it was, but at length he decided that it was immobile.  All he had to decide now was whether or not identifying the anomaly was worth the risk of getting shot by any motion sensors during his approach.  Zell was ambivalent about both scenarios.  If he had a coin handy, he would have flipped it to see what he should do.  The smartest thing, of course, would be to fling the coin at the target and see if it got fried before it hit the ground.  It was either that or Zell charge at the contraption and play chicken with the defense laser beams.

       It did not appear to be attended, and Zell saw no place on the cliff for a person to hide.  It was time for him to take a look at what he had found.  He stepped out from behind his hiding place and advanced with caution towards the machine.  It was unmistakably metallic, just as he had guessed it would be initially.  After another few steps though, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped at the realization of what he was walking towards.

       It was a blue A09-series Garden motorbike, even better than the jet-propulsion A08 motorbikes that the Galbadian soldiers had used to jump from the Seifer's Garden to Balamb's during the battle by Edea's Orphanage.  Zell had seen advertisements for one of these demons of speed in the 'Combat King' magazines, but he had no idea that they were out on the market yet.  He was probably looking at a prototype or limited edition, promotional, collector's item.  Zell licked his lips, unable to contain the excitement he felt.  He would have to tell Squall about this when he got back to Garden; it would be of definite interest to him because he made mention of it when he saw the same advertisement in the 'Weapons Monthly' catalog.  Of course, it would be difficult to convince Squall that there was actually one already out of production and on the streets.

       Zell wiped the dribble that clung tenaciously to his chin, but never once did he take his eyes off of the dream ride.  It was the paradigm of beauty and technology.  The chassis was waxed and glazed, the tires still slick, and the pipes spotless.  Judging from how juiced up the motorbike was, he would have to guess that the owner treated her like the love of his life.  Some of the alterations and upgrades looked costly.  The improvements on the peripherals that had no effect on the performance of the vehicle were made in accordance to the owner's tastes despite its neglect of frugality.  The chic, chrome rims had obviously been custom-fitted, the tires mounted were of the wider, low profile, professional sporting kind, the exhaust pipe had been changed to an excessively large one that promised a loud hum, the handle bars painted and shined, water-filled seat cushions with plush covering, the factory lights had been replaced with xenon ones, and a nitrous canister hooked up to the engine, which from the looks of it had been tweaked and tuned to maximal efficiency.  It would have no problem netting a big-time, auspicious sponsor like GM, Garden Motors, for any additional funds.  Overall, it was a very pricey job that few people had the luxury to afford.  Luxury did not begin to describe the pretty Gil it must have cost, but he had to admit the owner knew how to have fun.

       "What a babe," Zell whispered in awe.  His lips trembled slightly in mid-sentence because of how hard the sleek exterior of the A09 was getting to handle.

       All he wanted to do now was to squeeze the throttle, rev the engine, and hear the sexy beast roar.  All he needed now was a leather jacket and some shades, and he could hop on and ride all the way to Galbadia in a second to pick up Mina, after which he would spirit her away to a paradise in the highway wind.  Whoever owned this baby and got to ride her till his ass ached was one lucky prick.  Zell contemplated whether the jealousy he was feeling was merited and decided that it was.  He wondered who the owner could be.  Whoever he was, he had become Zell's new best friend.

       While scoping out the luscious lift again, his eyes wandered over the stolid, black carrying case of the Lionheart, hanging on the far side of the bike off its handle.

       Zell did a double take but caught himself before he fell over.

       "No way!" he hollered in a half-ecstatic, half-chaffed fashion.

       He was overjoyed because he would surely get to feast his eyes on the beautiful brute again, but it pained him just as much because he knew that Squall would never let him touch it as long as he lived.  It also hurt Zell's feelings that Squall had not informed him about his new purchase.  They were buddies and old roommates, and so it seemed selfish that Squall had not brought himself to share the news about his wealth, if he was not even going to share his wealth.  Being that the ride was Squall's, though, Zell decided against hotwiring it, mainly because Squall would have the foresight to rig an alarm and possibly a self-destruct mechanism on the ignition system.  If the A09 had been Irvine's, Zell would have cashed in his technical engineering skills and been flying down the freeway five minutes ago.

       Zell was still puzzled about where Squall struck the gold to lavish on a state-of-the-art motorbike that was supposedly still in its development phase.  With his responsibilities and time-commitment to Balamb Garden as its SeeD Commander and his supervising role and instructing positions that they all shared in Nova Trabia, it was impossible for him to have taken enough money jobs in secret between shifts to cover for the exorbitantly high figure needed to cover even the basic expenses, not to take into account the cost of all the extravagances.  Meanwhile, the level A SeeD salary was just a drop of water in the bucket relative to the Gil in question.

       Zell rubbed his forehead.

       "I'm thinking either he borrowed Rinoa's credit card or Laguna was behind this," Zell concluded at length.  With her father's name, Heartilly could have coerced a team of Galbadian engineers to soup up Squall's ride.  Likewise, Laguna was a viable contributor; Esthar's electricians were very knowledgeable about beefing up vehicles and a word from the President could have set them working on the A09 and pre-releasing it faster than the parole board did to Seifer.  If it was Laguna's way of apologizing for being an absentee parent for seventeen years, what a gift it was!  Zell wished his biological father would follow in suit if he ever came forward and formally recognized him.

       _Where is Squall, anyway?_ Zell wondered, finally tearing his eyes away from the gorgeous sight.  It was a painful experience to look up from the bike, but he was able to brave it like a man.  Still, it felt as though he had left a part of his heart with the A09, a quality that affected a numbness over his entire body as he walked away, each step feeling heavier than before because of the added weight of incompleteness saddled on his shoulders.

       Beginning with the area around the motorbike, Zell circled outwards and inspected the ground for any traces of his friend.  In particular he was searching for signs of a struggle because it was impossible for Squall to leave his A09 unattended unless some sort of emergency came up.  The carrying case for the gun-blade was locked so he could not check to see if Squall had taken it with him, wherever he had gone.  It was unlikely that Squall would have been victorious without his weapon if he had been assaulted without warning.

       Zell shook the idea of a sneak attack out of his head.  If treachery was involved, the vandals would have also made away with the bike.  The only other two possibilities were that he walked away by himself or something popped out of the forest and surprised him.  The cold bike's engine and dewy seat were indicative of Squall's absence through the duration of the night.  If he had not returned to reclaim it after all this time, chances were that he would never come back.  This was not the conclusion that Zell wanted to envision.  He had to have missed something, some crucial piece of the puzzle.

       As he drew near the edge of the promontory, things began to look more hopeful.  Zell noticed telltale signs of activity from the night before.  There were a number of cigarette butts littered about, one lying three to four feet apart from the next.  Zell chose a point that rested roughly in the middle of the imaginary polygon formed by each of the cigarette butts as vertices.  This was where Squall had been for the longest time, or at least as long as he took to smoke six Malboro tentacle rolls.  Of course, there would have been no way of knowing if someone else had smoked them in Squall's stead, but Zell never objected to going on hunches.  Smoking, after all, was a bad habit that Squall picked up ever since they met the Malboros on the Island closest to Heaven.  The racketeering business for joints could very well have exceeded their pay as SeeDs, but Squall did not see much potential in himself as an entrepreneur.  Thus, he settled with the addiction and missed out on the investment of a lifetime when the Malboro industry burgeoned globally just weeks later.

       Zell studied the area further for more information.  His eyes set on a wide set of prints that looked largely unfamiliar, from which he deduced that Squall had treated himself to a pair of brand new sandals.  They looked comfortable, if the prints were of any indication.

       "He must have been really proud of himself too," Zell muttered grimly before going back to sweeping the scene for clues.  He could not fully dismiss the pang of envy nicking in his chest from knowing that he too had had nice, comfy, new shoes not too long ago.

       Zell looked down despondently at his weathered sneakers, having been ruined by fire, mud, saltwater, and sand.  It took some amount of skill – a skill that Zell wanted to lose – to retire the latest, most advanced and presumably the most durable specimen in modern footwear technology in less than a day.  The next time he was foolish enough to dress in his best for battle, he would be sure to cast Life3 on his shoes first.

       Deeply annoyed, Zell roughed up his hair and slammed his fist into the ground.  He could not believe it.  They had been signed by Mr. Jammy himself!

       The natural, mature thing for him to do in the next minute would be to kick up a dust cloud and holler profanities at it, but as he lifted his palm, he noticed a less conspicuous indentation in the dirt beside his own.  It looked like the heel of a size six.

       Having read every issue of all the top women's fashion magazines in Balamb since his initiation into Garden, supplemented by extensive, indefatigable online research about the latest designs and social trends, and having allocated countless hours to window-shopping whenever and wherever there was a clearance notice, Zell was able to draw from his vast sea of firsthand knowledge the identity of the shoe that had left the mark.  The precise naming of the brand, make, and model were payoffs that were now his in which to revel.  For him, the connoisseur of high heels, the day had finally come to lift his head proudly and cavort around the arena of the eclectic with the attitude that his hard work had not been for naught and that the corollary prize was worth every second of it.

       If the mark did not lie and his memory did not mislead him, the second person on the scene had a great if expensive taste in fashion.  She had chosen to wear an extraordinarily stylish set of heels that far exceeded the occasion, seeing how Squall had surprised her with some sandals.  Nevertheless, Zell could see that the virgin shoes whose prints bore clear definition had returned to Nova Trabia Garden with far more fervor than they had embarked.

       Zell ruminated quietly over who would be inspired enough to trek all the way out to the cliffs in high-heeled boots just to confront Squall.  Quistis was the only woman who fit the profile.  If Seifer had discovered a new calling to transvestitism, surely Zell would have found some teeth on the ground instead of just footprints.  But with the terrain pretty much barren of any derelict teeth, Zell methodically ruled out the latter possibility.

       What did not make any sense to him was that none of Squall's prints indicated that he had gone back to the Garden.  Albeit his parked motorbike was testimony enough to that fact, neither set of clues could offer a satisfactory explanation as to where the Commander might have disappeared.

       Perplexed, Zell flopped down and dangled his legs over the cliff, alternating between scratching his head with his left hand and smoothing his hair back in place with his right.  It was his way of advertising his sagacious side without compromising his suave mien.

       The wind had picked up slightly since he last made note of it, perhaps thirty seconds ago.   Blowing up against the soles of his feet, Zell felt like levitating.  Sheets of waves were now racing across the ocean surface like peels of apple skin sheered by an invisible knife.  Wisps of wind tugged perseveringly at his hair, and he wondered briefly how exhilarating it would feel to accept their invitation and jump.  It really was an amazing if frightening place to perch.  In that fright, though, there was a sense of peace to be grasped.

       _Thank Eden I'm not as dumb as Laguna, he reflected, feeling the rationality creeping back into his head.  _Short of thirty Tiamats, there is nothing that could possibly make me want to throw myself off of this cliff_._

       The image of a flying, vampire Mina in pursuit of him flashed through his mind.

       "Well…" he began to reconsider his original estimation of the sufficient drive to jump.

       Zell peered over the edge to check his altitude again and decided that perhaps it wasn't too high to chance.

       Mina with wings and armed weapon was multiple times scarier than thirty Tiamats any day of the week.  But he was used to that.  He could tolerate the eccentricities as part of the ritual male accommodation for his lady, but her silence or disdain were separate matters.  No mercenary prep course could offer him the emotional buffer and psychological integrity he needed to fend off her crippling, disappointed gaze, her soul-piercing scoff.  Even the deepfreeze, ice-elemental-resistant nano-suits were sure to crumble like sugar cubes if she gave him the cold shoulder.

       Zell shuddered at the frostbitten memory.  That night, right before she impressed upon him her nonsensical riddle, she had first broken from his embrace, crossed her arms, and bit out coldly, "You can't kiss me." 

       The words made him feel like he was hollow inside because they sounded like forever.  It was awfully hard to fight against eternity, and even harder to endure on the receiving end of deprivation for just as long.

       Zell covered his face with both his hands and tried not to cry.

       Something was up.

       Zell shook himself out of his dejected, self-pitying trance and focused on the problem.

       The air was not right.  It was not exactly wrong, either, but an eerie, claustrophobic, sixth sense-type feeling had settled over him as if to catch his attention and push him to be more alert.

       Zell paused, unsure exactly what excited a premonition that caused his stomach to tighten.  He looked about the horizon, anticipating…well, he did not know what to anticipate, so he just kept on looking.  The waves were still crashing below, the ocean surface shimmering as it churned under the sun's blistering brilliance.

       "Maybe I'm just out of it," he murmured aloud as he tried to shrug off the willies.

       This time he sensed something for sure.  It was a delicate but clear call towards his right.  He searched in that direction and saw, eight degrees behind the protruding shoreline, a person stretched out motionlessly on the beach.  Closer inspection revealed a barefooted, brunette male with an orange shirt and jean shorts.  Interestingly enough, Zell almost mistook him for being just a pile of rags until he realized that the man's face shared the same color as the sand. 

       Zell raced over to Squall's A09 and tried to break open the storage compartment.  Knowing Squall, there had to be binoculars packed in with the rest of the ultimate loner's survival kit.  The safeguard on the locking mechanism turned out to be state of the art though, and Zell, bereft of any tools, was powerless to do anything about it.  With a sigh, then, he settled down to guess Squall's password by punching in random buttons on the keypad like an experimental money searching for a treat.  There was a certain heaviness that hit him square in the chest as he clumsily downshifted from overdrive to first gear on the adrenaline highway.  The metaphorical traffic behind him could not decelerate in time to prevent the seven-car pileup.  In short, it was both a major letdown and a humiliating situation in which to be.

       "LEONHART," he keyed in.

       Negative.

       "RINOA," he tried again.

       Negative.

       "SEED," he guessed.

       Negative.

       "LOIRE."  _Fat chance_.                                                

       Processing…Negative…Not a winner…Sorry, chump…Try again.

       Zell rubbed his left eye with his palm and tried to determine if he had been seeing things.  Did the computer console just insult him?

       "SIS," he typed.

       Negative.

       "ELLONE"? he tested.

       Negative…Give it up, space ranger.

       Zell rubbed his bottom teeth against his top set.  It did no credit to his masculinity to crouch beside the bike and watch as a bunch of intrepid red pixels impugned his capacity without a fitting retaliatory response.  He needed to at least issue a statement to vindicate himself from these deprecations.  Too much of this was unhealthy for one's self-esteem and likely to stunt character development.

       Zell huffed and conceded that it was hopeless.  He might as well work his way down the precarious slopes and investigate the body.  He spared one last abysmal glance over the bike  and the silver lion emblem-studded sword case before turning to quit its company.

       The Griever icon.

       Zell spun on his heels.  _Of course!_

       He reached down excitedly towards the keypad, mistyped the GF's name three times before finally entering "GRIEVER," and then tapped the enter key with a triumphant look on his face.

       Accepted.

       "Welcome to the penthouse," Zell congratulated himself.

       The lid of the glove compartment popped open with a complimentary hydraulic hiss, revealing every item of the bare necessities of survival in the field that Zell had predicted and nothing more – alas surely nothing as scandalous as to carry any utility value or promise should he choose to implement it by blackmailing his compatriot.  Tucked away neatly to the side were a pair of helmets and an anticipated set of binoculars.  It was unthinkable that a person like Squall could travel without the latter; it was the most logical avenue through which an introvert as critical of society as Squall was to collect the minimally sufficient behavioral data on which to base a defensible criterion so as to improve his own introspective outlook.

       Zell seized the binoculars and rushed back to the cliff edge.  He estimated the distance between himself and the target, and then set the specs accordingly.  His digits were unusually tense.

       _Why are my fingers shaking?_ the SeeD noticed uneasily.

       Even before he brought the binoculars to bear, there hung a strange sense of static in the air, a screaming alarm amidst the silence that boded ill for the discovery to come.  Accidents wait to happen, but few are the intrepid who push on with redoubled resolve to seek them out.  Counter-intuitively did Zell so conduct himself and ever did he lament his conscious choice.

       They dropped before he realized that they had even parted from hands.  Instinctively he bent to pick up and wipe off the smudge on the lens with his shirt, but neither his eyes nor thoughts had left the residual images of the offenders still turning in his mind.  Within the circular scope the telltale walnut streaks and orange shirt had announced the obvious culprit, dallying on a delicate flower with a blue-rimmed crown.  Her oceanic lips settled upon his and the tips of each melted together like running waves against the shore.  Zell never saw it coming, but he was seeing it now, as much as he would have liked to deny what seemed to be staring him straight in the face more than he was at it.

       _Who is that girl?_ Zell turned in his mind.  _What is she doing with…is it him – yes, it is._

       It was unmistakable to the point that had Zell even the stomach for it, he would not have double-checked.  Not really knowing why, Zell began to back away slowly.  Quite randomly his reflex prudence kicked in and he was inspired to look around and make sure that no one else had chanced upon the delicate scene as had he.  

       Without further scrutinizing, Zell meandered back to the bike, more or less oblivious to what he was doing.  Even so, before he was back on his way, trying to pretend that nothing had been spied, the shameless stool pigeon of a binoculars was set back into its compartment and the gate closed, vainly attempting to lock away in its depths the secret that Zell now bore away.  The yoke of unwanted intelligence and the curse of enlightenment were his only companions, commiserating him on his journey home, filling in each empty step where the confident spring should have been.  Mr. Jammy would have cried.

       The trudge was fairly uneventful.  Some grass.  In the distance, trees.  Timber.  The good old days.  The dirt was interesting.

       _Okay_, he admitted, _it's really not_.

       He felt no need to justify why he did not wish to lift his eyes.  He was also resentful that anyone might expect him to otherwise hold his head up and authoritatively impress upon him some self-important platitude instructing him to drag his feet in a manner that exuded pride in the Garden if he was indeed intent on doing it so depressingly.  Once again the ambient social conditions had thrust upon him some outrageous responsibility – outrageous in both its content and its unwarrantedness – and left him to deal with it.  For this charitable and laborious deed he would derive neither pleasure nor ulterior benefit.  It was crap if he ever had to take it.

       Thus nailed to a chore of humanity, Zell was little aware of the passage of time and the progress of his own passage from the beachside cliff to the front steps of Nova Trabia Garden.  It half-surprised the part of him that was actually awake enough to care once he actually got there.  His trusty legs had navigated their way home and dragged him, the lost and unwitting horseman back to their origin.  From the front, the Garden looked deserted.  Behind the opaque gates, he would not find many students cavorting at this hour.

       His feet felt foreign as he ascended the marble stairs.  In his opinion, Selphie had chosen the material well – a strategic upgrade from basic granite.  It would not surprise him if to turn a profit Selphie had just installed hollow steps.  They sure felt like it.  Or was that just him?

       After climbing twenty-four steps, he became aware that there was someone tugging at his sleeve.  It also occurred to him that she was the same person he had brushed off four steps earlier.  Three steps before that he had presumably ran into her and knocked her down on accident.  In the step after that one he had not turned to help her up.  It was all so foggy because he hadn't actually looked up while any of this was happening.

       His gaze followed his hands, up his arm, to the little fingers now wrapped around his elbow, up the white wrist, over a soft shoulder, up a silky neck, and finally settled on a lovely face.  His focused on a set of curiously pink pupils.

       _Who are you? _the wide-eyed Zell thought to ask.

       The girl you met in the forest.

_       Do I know you?_ he wondered again.

Moron, of course you do.  She's the girl you met in the forest.

       _Have we met?_ he wanted to ask her.

       Yes, you dip.  You met in the forest.

_       You look awfully familiar_, Zell noted.

       That's because you met in the forest!

       _Wait!  You must be the girl I met in the forest!_ Zell recognized.

       I give up.

       "Hey," her voice rose gradually as he took the entire world off the mute key.  Suddenly everything jumped back into the range of audibility – the birds chirping, the whistling wind, and the cascades of water hiding behind the gates.  It fell on him like a caffeine rush.

       "Hello?" she accosted him again, this time with a more insistent tug.

       Judging from how much longer his sleeve looked, Zell estimated that she had been pulling on it for over a minute.  How woeful it seemed that it would not matter how many times he washed it now, no amount of shrinking would be able to restore it.

       She punched him in his gut softly.

       ""Are you even listening to me?" she pouted.

       "Huh, what?" he stuttered.

       "That dumb lizard must have knocked you up really hard, you poor thing," the girl cooed.  She ran her fingers through his hair and patted his head softly.

       Zell decided that it would be too emasculating to have her check his head for injuries so he straightened up and smoothed out his hair.  She smiled, let her arms slip back down to her sides, and put her hands back in her pockets.  Zell found that action particularly attractive because ever since Quistis and Selphie's make-shift skirts had taken over the latest fashion trends in Trabia, there had been a real dearth of pockets in the indigenous female arena.

       "Naw," he denied in the best ingenuous-farm-boy accent he could feign, "I showed him."

       The silver-haired girl squinted in curious disbelief and scrutinized Zell for a second.

       Zell broke out a smile that stretched from ear to ear.  It looked extremely suspicious.

       Her features softened and she brought her fingers to her mouth to cover a giggle.

       "Okay," she conceded reluctantly, "but don't let me catch you lying or _I'll_ show _you_."

       She hit his arm playfully to cap off her ultimatum, as if by that act Zell would have found her words any more ominous.

       Zell scratched the back of his head and searched vainly for the next insightful thing that would cross his mind to blurt out.

       She entertained herself by staring at his smudged face for a second before extending her hand to him.

       "Please, call me Pearl," she introduced herself.

       Zell's lower jaw dropped a little as tried to determine if she was expecting him to shake her hand or to kiss it.  Chivalry being dead, he figured a casual handshake was wanting.  However, the fact that his hands might be dirtier than his lips stayed him.  Should he take the hand or kiss it?  They could very well possess the same degree of filthiness-

       "Do you have a name?" she questioned, letting her hand drop.

       _Oh no!  Is she hurt that I didn't even reach out to take her hand?_ he thought frantically.

       When he did not answer, she added, "Something your friends and family call you?"

       "I'm Zell," he answered hurriedly.  His hand shot out and grabbed hers before she had a chance to put it back in her pocket.

       Pearl seemed surprised but not offended by the brusque maneuver, possibly because she saw how genuinely flustered he was.

       _Is that good or bad?_ he wondered.

       His new acquaintance began to braid her hair coyly as if to offer him the next move.

       "Can you let me in?" Pearl pleaded suddenly.  "The gatekeeper is being very anal today."

       Offhandedly Zell wondered why she didn't just use her bodily charm to wheedle her way in.  He also remembered how the Balamb Garden gate guard had been similarly anal retentive in restricting the passage to the outside after hours or while the Garden was in motion, though.  It would not be a shocker if he now denied passage into the Garden because it was too early in the morning. 

       "It's not really a day by day thing," Zell explained to her.  "It's in his job description.  Either that or the Garden employment office is doing a hell of a job with personality profiling." 

       When she laughed under her breath, he felt pleased with himself at having finally put forth a comment that had actually been his intention to be funny.

       "So you're not a SeeD then?" he deduced.

       She bit her bottom lip and shook her head.  Then she motioned for him to move closer as if she wanted to convey some great secret to him.

       He played along and leaned down.

       "I was hoping that you would be my escort," she whispered in his ear.  Then she wrapped her arm around his and pointed up the steps at the gate.

       "Come on, let's go!" she urged, giving him a little push.

       "What's so exciting about the Garden that you'd want to go in?" Zell asked.

       "I'm looking for some friends," she replied as they marched up the steps.  "Maybe you know them?"

       After they had gone up a decent number of steps, when Zell realized that she was not going to expound on the subject, he pressed her for more information.

       "Maybe I know them?" he echoed her.  "Do they have names?  Something their friends and family call them?"

       She pulled him to a halt and scowled at his patronizing remark.  He lifted his eyebrows in a challenge and she had to resign to a frustrated pout.

       "That wasn't funny," she whined and hit his arm lightly with her freehand.

       "Out with it," Zell, pretending to be stern, told her.

       She fiddled with her silky hair some more but said nothing, seeing how he was doing a miserable job of it.  When it was clear that he would not relent, she sighed and turned to go back down the steps and look for some other way in.

       Suddenly Zell became pliable and it was now his turn to drag his partner up the last few steps.

       "Come on," he entreated, pulling her in the direction of the gates, "just tell me." 

       Pearl shook her head and tried to walk away, but found herself moving backwards.  Before she could protest, he hoisted her up on his shoulders and ran with her to the entrance.  She initially frowned, but her subsequent squeals of delight belied any earlier sentiments of annoyance.

       "You're going to have to tell me eventually," he pointed out good-naturedly.

       Realizing that there was no way of fighting him off, she conceded and answered him, "I was going to file a missing persons statement for my girl friend Merali." 

       _Cute name_, Zell contemplated.  _Hey, wait a second-_

"Girlfriend?" he repeated.

       Pearl blinked, unsure what Zell wanted her to say next.  She looked at him quizzically.

       Zell blushed, realizing he was reading too much into her words.  He waved the topic away and motioned for her to continue.  It was a motion she could not have picked up on, being that she was slung over his shoulder and facing backwards.

       "We got separated on the beach last night," she went on, "and I was hoping someone might have found her and brought her back here."

       _"The beach is blue at night because the ocean reflects the moonlight and casts it onto the sand.  It's so beautiful."  Mina told me that once._

       "Don't you think she can find her way back alone?" Zell asked, coming out of his trance.

       Pearl shook her head, forgetting that Zell could not exactly see her body language.

       "Merali is a mute," she explained in a low voice.

       Zell blushed again as the feeling of ignorance of the patently obvious washed over him.  Actually he could not have known that, but that did not save him from being embarrassed.

       "Well," he struggled to recover some dignity, "what does she look like?"

       Discomfited by his sudden inquisitiveness, Pearl turned around and look at the back of his head skeptically.  _You can't be serious.  Are _you_ going to help me?_

       "For the file," he made out as casually as possible.

       _Guess he can't do _that_ much harm interfering_, she considered.  _After all, he looks innocuous enough_.

       Zell had been trying very hard in the meantime not to look too interested, deciding that whistling "Dance of the Balamb Fish" was the best mode through which to mask his curiosity.  After factoring in the nervousness, though, the tune sounded more like the jarring theme of the presidential sorceress parade in Deling City.

       Pearl giggled and finally shrugged.

       "Merali has decent height, long, blue hair, and pale skin," she described her friend in a voice lined with a tinge of envy.

       The image of the girl he saw on the beach flashed through his mind like a changing slide in a projector, and the world seemed to darken by a few shades right before it exploded in his face.  The effect was comparable to the projector, screen, or film catching on fire.

       "Zell," Pearl cried, tapping his back, "are you okay?"

       When her solicitation obtained no response, she resorted to hitting his back and shoulders with increasing increments of force.

       _I hope he doesn't bruise easily_, she thought to herself.

       "Huh, what?" Zell stammered, his grip on reality slowly returning.

       _You were on the subject of her girl friend, moron_, his subconsciousness sneered.

       "Oh, yeah," Zell replied, recovering, "I wouldn't worry about her."

       "Why not?" she inquired.

       "She's in good hands," he told her tersely.

       Pearl paused to think about his odd assurance.  The gate window was just one corner away.

       "You were beginning to worry me there," Pearl informed him when she felt them moving again.  "What was up with you being so silent and stopping to a dead halt like that?  Did you see a ghost or something awful?"

       "No, I was just-"

       Zell pitted to a hard stop for the second time.

       A slim man in a blue uniform had taken his place by the gate guard.  His ostentatious insignia markings were only too familiar.

       "Speaking of something awful," Zell muttered as he bent down to let Pearl off his shoulder.

       "What is it?" she asked, still holding onto his arm.  "Did – oh, I see."

       At the sight of them, the gatekeeper motioned to his companion.  That man, the apparent superior, looked up.

       "That's her," the guard identified Pearl, "the one who tried to get through earlier."

       Zell straightened his shirt to brush up his appearance as if it was not speckled with mud stains.

       "Good morning, sunshine," he greeted the serious-looking man in the blue suit.

       The addressee frowned but otherwise ignored the comment.

       "Zell Dincht," he said, "it is five demerits and two service shifts for an unauthorized after-hours stay outside Garden.  I'll decide later how much to penalize you for what looks like inappropriate fraternization."

       _As if he could draw the lines for appropriate fraternization_, Zell reflected sourly.

       "Come on, Sergeant Jay," Zell whined in perfect infantile form, "my excuse this time is so good, you have to hear it!  I spent a while thinking it up just for you."

       "Rules are rules, Zell," Jay dismissed the rambling and handed Zell a sheet of official-looking paper.  "I can't have troublemakers like you and Kinneas running rampant without any semblance of order."

       "You can take your executive Disciplinary Committee note and stuff it," Zell retorted, shoving the form back into Jay's chest.  "Those student regulations don't apply to a Headmaster-appointed supervisor of activities."

       When no one reacted, he had to point at him chest with his thumb and add, "That would be me."

       Pearl calmly brushed a stray strand of silver hair out of her face to back behind her ear, but he could tell she was impressed.

       _Please be impressed_, Zell prayed in one of his spare seconds.

       Sergeant Jay's fists were tightly clenched and trembling in anger.  Had the air been colder and more humid, the steam spouting from his ears would have been visible vapor.

       "Don't think I'm going to let you off so easily, Dincht," Jay grunted with dire malice in his voice.  "I intend to take these charges all the way up to the top-"

       "Yeah, yeah," Zell interposed quickly, "go write a memo about it."

       "Come on," he whispered to Pearl, "let's get out of here before he thinks of a reply."

       As he turned from the gate window, she caught his hand.  It threw him off for a half-second, but the momentary delay was soon replaced by a blood rush unparalleled since Rinoa had dared him to stomach thirty chocobolate bars in five minutes.  Thirty Garden hotdogs had not been a problem for him, so of course he took Rinoa's bet and won with no problem.  Their wager had been the newest issue of the Galbadia Gal fashion magazine, an item that he was glad to have acquired from her without fostering a spirit of vindictiveness.

       By the time Jay lifted his hand and shouted his order for them to stop, the couple had already hopped over the railing and disappeared into the Garden quad.

       "Aren't you going to do anything about them, sir?" the gate guard asked him.

       The sergeant looked down at him long and hard.

       "Mind your own business, soldier," he bit out fiercely.  

       His eyes narrowed.  _We're far from finished, Dincht._

       As far as Zell was concerned, though, their conversation had ended the minute Jay refused to hear his excuse.  He had been really proud of that excuse too.  While Quistis had always maintained that excuses never solved anything, they did make him feel better and exculpate him for any shortcomings for which he would otherwise have to unjustly assume the blame by default.

       By now, he and Pearl had reached the limestone bridge set in the middle of the quad over an artificial stream.  Selphie had fought hard with the architects of the original Nova Trabia Garden floor plans to have them re-space everything to make room for her trench that would split the quad in half.  The deposit from the indoor waterfall would feed into the trench and fill it for a moat-like appearance.  Squall's exact words to him about what happened in the boardroom were, "I don't think construction foremen would have approved of including that waterfall if Selphie hadn't threatened their lives."

       Pearl pulled Zell to the side of the bridge and leaned over the railing to gape at the empty riverbed.  Deciding that the plain, white mass of concrete would look different from another angle, she sat up onto the bar and then swung her legs over the side.  He steadied her but nevertheless did not share her fascination with what hadn't been completed yet.  The cascade would not be ready for pumping out water for another few days.  And so, while she was admiring the foundations, he took the time to look up and admire the buttresses that the team was busy erecting.  It complemented the whole waterfall setup surprisingly well.  Even if Selphie failed the mechanics portion of the construction profession miserably, she was still a prodigy of interior design.

       "It would probably pay better," he muttered cynically. 

       "What was that?" Pearl asked him, having missed most of internal conversation.

       "Ah, nothing," he dismissed quickly.  "I was just being stupid."

       _And we know what a rarity THAT is…_

       "No, come on," she insisted, "explain."

       She was giving no sign of dropping the subject.  In that respect, she might have vied Rinoa's tenacity and woebegone obstinacy.

       "Then tell me about your other friend," Zell diverted.  "You said you were looking for 'some friends'.  'Some' means more than one."

       _How very clever of you to notice, Zell_, his subconsciousness scoffed.  _We might as well commemorate this moment with a holiday._

       Pearl scowled but gave him the answer, ever so grudgingly, "I'm looking for Seifer."

       The breakfast that he didn't have was doing wheelies in his stomach.

       _Maybe she means a different Seifer_, he comforted himself.

       "Seifer," she repeated as if he was hard of hearing or absolutely in love with that name.  "Seifer Almasy."

       The mere mention of the name made his blood boil, evoking images of what he thought could most aptly be characterized as evil with gelled hair and a laugh.  If Zell kept a list of things that he wanted to burn, Seifer would be on it.  Even if Seifer was not immediately on it, he was sure that someday Seifer would indeed burn.

       His pink-eyed companion must have felt him tense up at her response, either by her keen powers of detection, or because his hand around her wrist was cutting off her circulation, because she rapped him on the chest lightly to recapture his attention.

       "What's wrong?" Pearl asked.  "What is it?"

       Then, eyes shining brightly, she added, "Do you know him?"

       "I don't think you'll find him in here," Zell uttered slowly, still taken back.  "In fact, Garden is probably the last place that you-"

       She interrupted his excruciating attempt to be polite with the announcement that Seifer was in Nova Trabia excavating religious artifacts.  Evidently she had tracked down his whereabouts through his church group news bulletin.

       The gears in Zell's mind were turning fast enough to produce some four-digit horsepower.

       _If Seifer really is in Nova Trabia, there's no way he could be _inside_ Nova Trabia Garden, could he?  No way!  No way.  Yet, the ruling out the impossible is the last thing I should do when dealing with Seifer.  Underestimating him is like shortchanging Rinoa's credit card on a shopping spree-_

       "Zell!" a high-pitched, not too happy voice sounded from behind them.

       Both he and Pearl spun around, putting their backs to the railing, to meet the incumbent distraction.  They were met by a short, dark-haired girl in Garden uniform with one hand placed ominously on her hip and the other clenched tightly around a crushed plastic cup and straw that was screaming for her mercy and to just end its miserable Mogberry Arctic Latte life.

       She did not extend her hand.

       "Rishi!" Zell gasped.  For a second he felt as if he should be embarrassed, but for the life of him he could not figure out what for.

       Her stare was making him feel guilty.  That was a definite sign that he saw way too much of Mina in her.  And he was as surprised as she was displeased, to say the least.

       Without waiting for him to answer whatever it was that he could not answer, Rishi stepped between him and Pearl, snatched up his hand, and bumped the other girl out of the way.  This extra jostling had the unfortunate effect of tipping Pearl, already seated in a precarious position, off her balance and nearly over the rail.  Zell had to make an effort with his free hand to grab her and keep her from falling backwards and headfirst onto the bedrock.

       Either unfazed, unaware, or unsympathetic, Rishi marched Zell past the 'Garden Ricebox' restaurant and into the adjacent corridor.  She got as far down the hall as the door to the officer's lounge before he found the inner strength to free himself of her covetous custody.

       "What?" he demanded.

       "What do you mean what?" she deflected.

       "You do realize that we just left her out there all by herself?" Zell checked.

       "The thought _had_ crossed my mind," Rishi replied sourly.

       Zell shuddered.

       "Geez, Rishi," he griped, "the way you patrol me!  It's like you're a regular correspondent with Mina or something."

       _You imbecile!_ she wanted to scream*.

          *Raine Ishida (nanaki_17@hotmail.com)

           gives the full account of the Rishi's

           letter to Mina in "Letter To A Friend."

       Zell must have seen the fire in her eyes and registered in that little Zell head of his the foreshadowed onslaught because his knees nearly buckled.

       Luckily though, at the sight of him trembling, her features softened and she almost began to look sympathetic.  Slowly the menacing eyebrows reassumed a more natural, homely slope, and  at last Zell was able to breathe easy.

       "I really don't know why you're so worked up," Zell informed her.

       "Have you completely forgotten about her?" Rishi questioned.

       "I think about Mina whenever I'm not about to get killed, and sometimes even then," he answered honestly.

       "Then what are we?" the other demanded to know.

       In afterthought, an incensed look of fury flashed over her face.

       "And _what_," she added then, pointing out to the quad where they had forsaken Pearl, "is _that_?"

       A dark cloud thundered over her remark.

       "Some things are better left ambiguous," Zell replied gravely.

       After a while his companion nodded solemnly in agreement.

       There was a brief moment of awkward silence before she looked him over curiously before pointing at his head and asking, "Did you lose a bet?"

       Before he could answer, she followed up her question with a corollary musing, "The winner must have had a keen sense of humor."

       He wanted to tell her that things like that tended to happen when one conferred the duties of his barber to a Blue Dragon, but in a combination of jadedness and fatigue, he neglected to mention it.  He would have even left it at that had Rishi not donned the demeanor of one who was willing and persistent enough to force it out of him.  Her crossed arms and tapping foot were just too formidable.  Either element individually he could have handled, but before both he would surely succumb.

       He would not have been spared from telling the embarrassing tale but for a semi-offensive slap on his rear.  The guilty hand had come from behind.

       Rishi got up on the tip of her toes to look over Zell's shoulder.  Her eyes widened and her face flushed.  Zell followed her gaze.

       Irvine Kinneas stood there, oiling the handle of his Exeter.  In hot pursuit behind him was a throng a Garden freshwomen.

       Irvine elbowed Zell and whispered, "You got to check this out."

       Zell decided that if his partner was referring to the Garden frosh, he would have to remain unimpressed.

       Upon seeing how apathetic Zell was, Irvine pushed him lightly and chided, "Will you relax?"

       Then, moving his gaze from Zell to Rishi, he systematically produced what he knew was universally considered a dreamy smile by their gender.

       "Hello there, little lady," the cowboy said, taking off his hat and taking her hand.

       Rishi giggled as he moved in closer.

       Zell shoved Irvine off of her before he could lean down and kiss it.

       "Relax, dung heap," he told Irvine.  "She's only fifteen."

       "Time waits for no one," Irvine remarked, "so why should I?"

       "Because cradle-robbing is unethical and in some cases illegal," Zell quipped back.

       Irvine flagged him off and looked him up and down.

       "Tsk, tsk," he reproached Zell.  "You look like crap."

       Zell sighed.

       "Finally," he crowed, "some truth in this world."

       He was so relieved that he went over to Irvine and embraced him.

       "Get the Ifrit off of me," Irvine cried in shock.

       Before the two could engage in any further altercation, the door to the officer's lounge slid open and Quistis walked out into the hall.

       "There you are," she exclaimed when she saw Zell standing there.

       Zell's eyes lit up and switched from hugging Irvine to falling on Quistis.  One did not need any excuse or truth to cuddle with her.

       "The log has you going off the perimeters last night but not re-entering," Quistis said, shaking him off.  "I was worried.  Squall is also registered as missing."

       "He's in good hands," he told her tersely.

       "So Squall is still out on the beach?" Quistis sought confirmation.

       Zell answered in the affirmative.

       Hoping to put Quistis through a guilt trip, Irvine faked a pout and inquired, "How come you never let on that you miss me, Quisty?  Should I leave for a night and not come back?"

       Quistis smiled more sweetly than either of them had thought was possible and then replied flatly, "Actually, you two are precisely the gentlemen whom I wanted to see."

       Irvine and Zell exchanged looks.

       _It must be my lucky day_, Irvine thought, licking his lips.

       _It must be my lucky day_, Zell copied, rubbing his hands together.

       "We received a high-priority video message from the Shumi early this morning," she elaborated, her voice suddenly sounding very stern.

       Irvine and Zell exchanged looks again.

       _Is it too late for me to retract my statement and walk away?_ Irvine wondered.

_       Is it too late for me to go back outside? _Zell followed in suit.

       "You two had best go in and replay the transmission for yourselves," Quistis suggested.

       "He's responsible," they said simultaneously, each pointing an accusing finger at the other.

       Quistis gave them both an exasperated look and ushered them through the door.  It closed behind them.

       The small gathering of female Garden students cried in disbelief and began to disperse.

       When Quistis was sure that they had gone, she came back out to check if there was anything else in the corridor she missed.

       There was something about a wide-eyed girl leaning against the opposite wall with her hands behind her back that begged her attention.

       "What's your name, darling?" Quistis asked, stooping down.

       Rishi told her.

       "Rishi, dear," Quistis continued, "could you be a good girl and go call Instructor Tilmitt from the construction zone back here?"

       The petite Garden student bit her lower lip but nodded.

       Quistis was not convinced, so she asked further, "Do you know what she looks like?"

       Rishi shook her head.

       "Just keep your eye out for the one construction worker who looks the most uncomfortable in her suit," Quistis advised.  _I'd tell her to look for the shortest one there except I know Dante is sure to be with her._

       Not needing to be told twice, Rishi nodded and whisked herself away.

       Left to herself, Quistis leaned against the wall that Rishi had just quit and crossed her arms.  She waited as the clattering of footsteps faded into nothingness.  She waited until hers was the only breath to be taken, waiting until no living ear could hear her.

       "Squall," she whispered, hugging herself tightly, "where are you?"

       Her fingers felt a nuance of warmth against the velvet on her vest.  She lowered her head furtively and tried to stifle a sniffle.  She really did not want to do what she could feel herself about to do.  She wanted to say anything except what came out next.  Maybe no one would find out.

       "If you come, I'll be here," she sighed, "waiting."

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	22. Setting 19: 0744 DAY 16, Trabia Coastlin...

Setting 19: 0744 DAY 16, Trabia Coastline 

_"We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream._

_Wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate streams._

_World losers and world forsakers, for whom the pale moon gleams._

_Yet we are movers and the shakers of the world forever it seems."_

-O'Shaunessey, Arthur

"We Are The Music-Makers"

       _I_t seemed like he had been waiting forever.  Forever being four minutes and twenty seconds.

       Squall checked his pocket watch again and then scratched his head.  Afterwards, he looked up.

       It did not look any different.  The door to the women's room had not opened and the girl in the white dress had not stepped out.

       _Why am I waiting here anyway?_ he wondered.

       Squall replayed the events in his head.  First the travesty of an attempt to befriend him by the really impulsive SeeD Zell Dincht.  Maybe he should have high-fived the poor guy when it had so earnestly solicited.

       _What came after that?_ he continued.

       Squall thought hard.

       The really animated SeeD Selphie Tilmitt had then confronted him and tried to rope him into some lost cause.  He had never seen so much energy directed to such pointless ends.  Whatever it was that she was trying to set up was, in his opinion, a serious misallocation of resources.

       _And what then? _he pushed himself.

       A cute face that he thought he should recognize had scuttled over to him.  The tight-fitting white skirt she came with was already making him uncomfortable, but the overbearing manner with which she carried herself downright unnerved him.  This stranger was like Quistis with no inhibitions.  All he was trying to enjoy a moment of solitude; watching the uncultured swine in dress uniforms try to do the two-step was entertainment enough for him.

       After some lackluster wizardry – he was not yet ready to call it enchantment – she dragged him onto the ballroom floor.  The song they danced to ended with a fireworks and she left him to socialize with her own entourage, or so he thought.  Before he could make it back to his home base by the corner column, she had once again emerged, taken his arm, and led him to the restrooms.

       "I'll be right out," she, motioning for him to wait by the benches just outside.

       It had been four minutes and twenty seconds since she disappeared into the ladies' room.  In Squall-time, this translated into forever.  Possibly more.

       _Time waits for no one_, he reasoned, _so why should I?_

       The bench was becoming too friendly with his pants.

       Squall took his chin off of his palm where he had been propping it, and then got up from the bench.  Sensing that some intolerable amount of dust had settled on him during his hiatus from movement, he spared a moment to vigorously dust off his uniform.

       _What are you doing here?_ he brooded, shaking his head.

       He had to get away.

       Squall left the restrooms, the girl, and the noise of the party behind, seeking instead the serenity of the balcony.  Under the blue moonlight, he realized how tranquil the Balamb night was.

       Someone came up from behind him.  Her high heels clicked against the marble tiles.  He debated briefly whether or not to turn around since he already guessed who it could be; the scent of rose, vanilla, and something he couldn't quite put his finger on filled his nostrils.  Only one person in Balamb Garden wore that kind of perfume.

       He had to admit she actually had on a pretty nice jupe that night.  Maybe one of the guys in the ballroom would notice.  For an instructor, she looked too alluring and too needy.  Neither aspect was very professional.  If things did not change soon, she was sure to lose her instructor's license.  It would be a cruel irony indeed should that happen, she being the prodigy and all.

       It seemed like he had been waiting forever.  Forever being four minutes and twenty seconds.

       Squall checked the clock hanging on the wall again and then scratched his head.  Afterwards, he looked up.

       It did not look any different.  She was still lying there, motionless.  She had not moved since he last remembered to check the time.  Perhaps he had fallen asleep and just woken up?

       He buried his face in his hands.  It was driving him insane.

       Dr. Kadowaki had not told the nurses to change her out of her blue and black outfit until they could diagnose her for something.  To Squall that meant that the infirmary staff had no idea what was wrong with her.  It was a glaring failure in the system, and he hated failures.

       _Why can't she just wake up?_ he wanted to shout.

       But then he was familiar enough with himself to know that he was not really annoyed with her; he was annoyed with the fact that nothing was going right.  How the second to best medicine and technology in the world could not revive one little girl from a coma was a situation that vexed him greatly.  It made him wonder to where and for what good all the Gil from his universal welfare pay cut was going.

       _No, that's not it_, he corrected himself angrily.

       He felt responsible for everything – that was it.  He was, after all, the head of the team that she had paid for, the leader of their ambiguous mission to free Timber and to assist her in all ways possible before its completion.

       _Is she merely a client then, or more than that?_ he questioned.  _When did she become a friend?_

       Squall blinked.

       _Since when did I begin to consider her a friend?_ he pondered with a tinge of alarm.

       Evidently somewhere along the way she had come to mean more to him than just a pushy, spoiled brat with some serious paternal issues that she was intent on dispelling in some deranged fashion that involved her father's credit card.  Now, as her friend, he felt responsible – responsible, and very, very guilty – as if he owed her something.

       It was not that he was adverse to responsibility; rather he just did not like being responsible.

       _No, that isn't it either_, he reassessed.

       He did not like being responsible for anything negative.

       Squall grabbed his hair and contemplated tearing it furiously.

       There had to have been something he could have done.  And it was obvious that whatever it was, he had not done it.  He held back when he shouldn't have.  He had failed as a leader.

       He gazed at the casualty that lied lifelessly before him.  With such a cost, was it even truthful for them to say that they won the battle?  Seifer would pay dearly.  He would see to that.

       Suddenly he felt something.  This feeling he felt, was it ineffable or just not yet able to be articulated?  There was a subtle difference.  He was scared of one and scared to do the other.  Slowly though, it came to him what to call the feeling.

       It was the irresistible urge to kiss her.

       He had not planned for this.  He felt fear grip his heart, among other things.

       Yes, it was fear.  Fear of what it all meant or fear that she would never be the same, it was fear all the same.  Squall was afraid.  One would think that he would be used to it by now, but fear comes in many forms and many definitions.

       _She is really lovely when she is asleep_, he observed, flopping back in his seat with a sigh.

       But she had not moved the entire time.

       It seemed like he had been waiting forever.  Forever being four minutes and twenty seconds.

       Squall checked the alarm clock by his bed and then scratched his head.  Afterwards, he looked up.

       It did not look any different.  The door to his personal bathroom was still shut and the faucet running.  He honestly had no idea why she insisted on showering in _his_ room.

       Squall made a face.

       _Better my room than someone else's_, he supposed.

       He flopped onto his bed and looked up at the formal SeeD uniform hanging on the wall over his head.  He debated whether or not to change into it before they went over to the ballroom.  The surprise celebration of the defeat of Ultimecia was Cid's idea of fun.

       Squall hated surprises, truly.

       His thoughts were interrupted by her complaints about feeling so grungy after Time Decompression and not having her white dance skirt into which to change.  According to her, it was stooping to a subhuman standard to go about feeling _that_ grungy.  Her griping was loud enough to penetrate the bathroom door, and even his head.

       _We're going to be late if she carries on like this_, he realized.

       He checked the clock again and estimated how much time they would have to make up on the way.  He tried to visualize the route to the Garden's ballroom and every possible place to shave off some time in order to optimize the trip.

       _At least she doesn't wear heels_, he comforted himself.

       Squall sighed.

       _I guess there is nothing to do but wait_, he concluded.

       With that, he tucked his hands behind his head and stared blankly at the little indentations in the ceiling.

       It seemed like he had been waiting forever.  He did not know exactly how long it had been, and at the present there was no feasible way of uncovering the answer.  

       _Where am I now?_ he wondered.

       He was shrouded in darkness.  He knew this first of all because he could not see anything, and secondly because some luminous body was appearing some distance in front of face.  The amorphous object brightened in intensity, which he took to mean that it was drawing nearer to him, taking a haphazard path as it advanced.

       It glowed so brilliantly that he might have mistaken it for a comet had it taken a straighter course and vanished before he could draw his breath.  Instead, it stuck around long enough for him to discern its identity based on its telltale movement and a little guesswork.

       It was a golden feather.

       _How eerie_, he remembered thinking.

       He was naturally drawn to it for some reason.  He even reached out to catch it.  It landed right in the middle of his palm and the world suddenly exploded into being around him.

       Squall looked down at his outstretched hand.

       In place of the feather he found two feminine, ivory-colored fingers.

       He could smell the beach and feel the sand on his arm and skin.  His back ached profusely.  He must have slept on top of something as innocuous as a rock or seashell, though it felt like a continuous overnight dragon noogie.  The rising sun and reflective ocean surface had entered into a joint marriage for the sole purpose of blinding him.

       Squall reached up with his free hand to cover his eyes.

       To his surprise, he did not have to.  A warm body had curled over him and cast a shade over his face.  With fingers softer than he could have imagined, his companion brushed his hair out of his eyes and proceeded to lean down and settle over his lips.

       Before theirs met, Squall caught a glimpse of a cascade of long, blue hair.

       _Rinoa?_ he desired to ask.  _Is that you?_

       Her lips felt like cotton but even softer.  Perhaps it would do her more justice to say that they exhibited the perfect balance between suppleness and gentleness that could only be reproduced by either swan down or flower petals.

       They also felt moist, as if there had been fresh dew on the petals.  He could feel the morning setting upon his mouth.  It was as sublime a taste as it was a feeling.  He would have to classify her as watermelon candy.  A night spent soaked in ocean water had not been able to mask the sweet fragrance in which she now drowned him.

       It had ended.  She lifted her head up and set it against his shoulder.

       It was then that Squall realized that the girl of perhaps eighteen years was lying on top of him.

       _What a light little thing! _he marveled.  Given her stature and the feel, she would have to try very hard to fool him into thinking she weighed even 45 kilos.

       What was more to his surprise was that she was whimpering the whimper that one whimpers before one breaks down into tears, a sort of transition between a sniffle and a sob.

       Squall began to sweat.

       _Had she been hurt?_ he wondered.

       His eyes widened.

       _Had he hurt her?_

       He shook his head and dismissed the idea.  After all, he had saved her from the pack of Fastilochon-Fs.

       He sighed.  So at least she was alive; he hadn't failed.

       The thought echoed in his head.  _I did not fail.  She was not my failure.  I am not that._

       After relaxing for a bit to the rhythm of her quiet sobs, he realized that he still hadn't seen her clearly since he had woken up.  He initially wanted to roll over but thought the better of it.  Next he tried to maneuver out from under her.  The jostling did not go unnoticed because she hushed herself and looked up at him.

       He found himself staring into a pair of large, aquamarine eyes.  It was mesmerizing.

       Squall's mouth was dry, a condition which, for the moment, he ascribed to natural dehydration instead of what he was gawking at.  

       _Grow up, you sissy_, he reproved himself.  _This is so unlike you_.

       Indeed, to be staring at anything was uncharacteristic of Squall Leonhart.  He could not remember the last time he stared at a girl.  Had he ever done it before?  Maybe once, many moons ago.

       She had held his gaze firmly until now when she finally caved in first.  She averted her eyes with a deep blush.  In that moment though, he had learned all she had wanted him to know.  She seemed to say, "Thank you."

       Not really knowing why, Squall brought his index finger up to her chin, then brushed it gently over her cheek and moved aside a strand of strikingly turquoise hair.  At first she shied away, not modesty, but eventually she yielded.  Argue as she might with herself, in the end, it came down to one simple fact: He was her savior.  He had leapt off a cliff for her.  He had committed himself to a silent promise to protect her with his life.

       Though she had already balked, Squall was long from tearing his eyes away from so beautiful a sight.  His lips trembled at the thought of marring it by his smallest influence.  She was so innocent, and that innocence was integral in the untouchable beauty about her.  The operative word there was "untouchable." One could not very well put the petals back onto the flower once it had been plucked.  In fact, he was almost afraid to clasp her against him now, dreading how she might vanish like a mirage, or he might wake up from this second dream.

       Yet, when, in the face of discouraging, self-imposed ethics, Squall tried to sit up, she clung to him, harder than before.  She was not ready to let him go.

       _It must be the trauma_, he guessed.

       The scene unfolding before him seemed too familiar, virtually reminiscent of something just beyond his memory.

       Squall shook his head.  He was drawing a blank.

       Getting back to business, he asked her what her name was.

       "Do you have a name?" he reiterated when she stayed silent.  _That was dumb.  Of course she has a name._

       Other questions of the same nature garnered no different results.

       _Perhaps she speaks a foreign tongue_, he theorized at last.  _I mean, so far she has been relatively unresponsive to any of my prompts._

       Her dress resembled Ellone's in color and simplicity.  She had the complete wardrobe set, white sash included.  From neck down they could be the same person for all practical purposes.  It was probably impolite to stare at her for as long as he had been, but the uncanny resemblance, on top of other things, would not release him.

       The girl was not blind to this fact, and being prompted by either inherent shyness or imaginative playfulness, she covered her face with her hands and peeked at him slyly through her fingers.  Whether or not it was her intention to do so, she passed herself off as being extraordinarily cute, which had the ancillary benefit of putting Squall at ease, thus breaking her spell and his gaze. 

       Thus freed, Squall quickly looked away and made a mental note to check up on Ellone.  It had been so long since he had last seen her.  Instinctively he reached over to his opposite hand to feel his ring.  When he did not find it on his finger, his hand moved up to his throat, expecting to find it dangling on his chain necklace.  When both attempts were frustrated, Squall looked down and realized what he had been doing subconsciously.

       Of course I don't have Griever on me, he remembered.  It is still with Rinoa.

       Even after Zell made her a replica of the ring in her size, she had refused to give the original back to him.

       Wait, he stopped himself.

       The memory of dashing across the main courtyard of Galbadia Garden while dodging bullets and fire spells with her so close behind him that he could smell her strawberry bubblegum breath settled upon him.  He had told her to keep it.  The next time he saw it after that was through his space outfit visor, hanging around her neck, strung neatly against her own small-sized duplicate.

       When did Ellone give it to me?  Squall tried to recall.  It was so long ago.

       He saw himself in the same style, orange t-shirt except he was pint-sized.  He had been noticing for some time that Matron and Mr. Kramer had been acting strangely.  Their entire attitude towards the children had changed, as if they suddenly had a reason to be detached.  It might have started after the day when the man dressed in black came to visit Matron.  He had run past them, gone into the house, and the next time he stepped out, it was a man dressed in white who was talking to Matron.  The bully Seifer had been spying on them too.

       Matron smiled less after her encounter with those two men.  Now she mostly kept to herself.  As for Mr. Kramer, he left the orphanage a lot to visit the Balamb shipyards, or so he claimed.  On occasion, his clothes would be ridden with sawdust or paint smudges.  Sometimes people with egg-shaped heads would come by and discuss Gil-related matters.  Squall even had to open the door or Mr. Norg a few times and pretend to be hospitable.  Even Irvy, who was always in his own little world with Sephy, was beginning to catch on.  An eerie atmosphere settled over the orphanage, a sort of indescribable gloom that Seifer thought it best not to inquire about.

       As Matron became more distant, Ellone had to step up and fill the void of responsibility.  Squall did not care what sort of evil spell was taking over the orphanage as long as he was with Ellone because it was their own little universe that no one else could touch.  Limitless security and warmth flowed from her smiling face.  It was as if she had never been taught to put on any other countenance.  Squall spent the majority of the blissful part of his childhood in her glorious world bereft of frowns and sorrows.  Only on two memorable occasions did he see his Sis affected by fear or grief.  Looking back now, she seemed like the bravest creature on the planet, to have shouldered so much on her own and hid so much from him because she did not want to hurt him.

       She had tried to deceive them with a casual laugh when Sephy blurted out to the group how she overheard from the grown-ups that they would have a flowerbed soon, but Squall was the only one who caught the nervousness that had crept into her voice.  How her eyes darted to the side for a split-second also belied her cheery demeanor that promised how "all would be well."  It was the one lie perpetuated through history.  From then on, each time the subject was mentioned, Ellone would try to deceive them in the same manner. 

       Squall picked up a small rock and threw it into the sea.  Apparently Ellone had reason to dread the idea of planting seeds in a garden, and now Squall understood her concern.  After all these years, he had finally pasted together the pieces of her life that the GFs had returned to him.  Guardian Forces could not steal one's memories forever.  They gave them back in fragments, usually in the form of dreams.  Of course, one could always order the GF to relate all the critical events that had happened in one's youth, but Squall had never relied much on his hears.  Hearing was a liability because of all the necessary and unnecessary lies that pervaded their civilization's communication.  If one was there, he should remember best what he witnessed, without need of anyone to narrate it to him.

       The second time Squall saw her sister in a moment of weakness was by the coast.  He had been chucking stones into the ocean behind the orphanage by himself all afternoon when she came out and found him.

       "Still trying to build a bridge, Squall?" Ellone asked him.

       Little Squall nodded and hurled his handful of pebbles as far as he could – about four meters.

       "You told me that if I filled up the ocean and walked across it, my mother would be on the other side," he huffed confidently.

       He then stared at Ellone intensely as if to daunt her from challenging her previous promise to him.

       It was her turn to nod.

       "There's always hope," she commented.

       Within those words Squall found a renewed vigor that prompted him to run around and gather rocks twice as fast as before.  He was not ready for what was to happen next.

       Ellone threw her arms around him and broke down into tears.  He was more startled than distressed at first, but he soon melted and tried comfort her.  She was holding on to him so tightly that it was becoming hard to breathe, and no matter what he said, she just seemed to cry harder.  She was not cheering up, not even when he patted her on the back, and that worried him a great deal.

       "I'm right here, Sis," he reassured her over and over again.  "I'm not going anywhere."

       There was nothing else he could do but clasp her just as tightly and wait for her to stop sobbing.  It was quite a wait, enough for half of his youth to fly by, but he stuck with her, and in the final sniffles, she wiped away her last tear with her sash and whispered in his ear, "Have you ever considered looking for your father?"

       Squall recoiled with a puzzled look on his face and replied, "I don't have a father."

       Ellone looked right into his eyes and told him the contrary.

       "I thought only Seifer had a father," Squall insisted skeptically.  Ellone was the notorious prankster of the orphanage, and he was wary of becoming another Zell whom she had tricked for two whole weeks into thinking that he had descended from a long line of glorious Wendigos who did not believe in bathing.  Ellone was a wily one.

       Ellone nodded, having seen the tall man that came to pick Seifer up once a week and brought him back late in the evening.  She had not successfully wheedled out of the Kramers any actual confirmation that the man was Seifer's legitimate father, but the implication was definitely there.

       "But you also are your father's son," Ellone informed Squall.

       "Why are you telling me this all of the sudden?" little Squall asked suspiciously as soon as he perceived that she was being serious.

       "Because if you ever want to find him, sweetheart, I want you to know that he is on the other side of the ocean in that direction," she replied, pointing beyond the orphanage to the far side of the island.

       "You may need to build another bridge, Squall," she murmured.

       "But you told me I could find my mother over there," Squall argued, pointing to the sea in front of them.  He stuck his lower lip out in defiance.

       Ellone sighed and decided she had been keeping the truth from him for so long.

       "She was, but I don't know if she is still there, dear," Ellone told him.

       For a moment, Squall just stood there, silently looking at the waves and trying to sort out the emotions of anger, betrayal, disappointment, loss, and inadequacy that were wrestling with his soul.  He looked back at her suddenly and said with the smile that one gets when he has thought of something clever, "I'll always have you, Sis, right?"

       "You'll find some nice girl to take care of you, I'm sure," she diverted.

       "But I don't need anyone else!  Just you!" Squall cried covetously.

       Ellone did not respond immediately, which made him take a step back.  She saw this and moved forward to take him back into her arms.

       "Oh, Squall," she wept, "yes, you always will.  I'll be here always.  I promise."

       Squall smiled cheerfully and hugged her back.

       "Promise me one thing in return, though," she demanded.

       Squall squinted in curiosity.

       "Promise me that you'll take care of yourself," she continued.  "You have to be strong for the both of us."

       "Of course I will," Squall beamed over her shoulder.  "I knew that already, even without you telling me."

       Ellone smiled wistfully, knowing her face was out of view from him.  She then released him but looked on with a guilty expression as he continued to pile up all the nearby rocks on the beach, hurling them some of them out to sea every few minutes.

       "I can't just leave you like this," she cried finally and began to look around for a keepsake to give to him.

       "You're leaving me?" Squall asked, dropping all of his rocks.

       Ellone searched her person but could not come up with anything except what she knew she should not give.  She still remembered the warning of the errant fortune-teller who was present when on her deathbed in Winhill Raine Loire passed what she purported to be the Leonhart family heirloom on to her.

       "Don't let it fall into the wrong hands," the hooded figure had cautioned them both.

       That was a rather vague warning, Ellone reflected, but at the time, she had been too emotional to delve into it and merely accepted the gift without so much as a nod.

       She had had no idea to whom the "wrong" or "right" hands belonged, but against every instinct in her body, she unlatched her necklace and slipped a silver ring off the chain.  This she handed to Squall who received it with both hands.

       "What is it?" the little boy asked curiously.

       "It's a ring," she replied.

       "You wear it on your finger," she clarified in jest when he didn't move.

       He gave her a wry smile and then tried to put it on his finger.  It was clearly too big for him.

       Ellone handed him the rest of the necklace.

       "Keep it around your neck until you can put it on your finger, then," she suggested.

       "Does it have a name?" Squall questioned.

       Ellone thought for a minute before shaking her head.

       "That is up to you, whatever you think it symbolizes," she answered.  "It could be the best in you, or the worst in you.  Just remember, though, it won't have a name until you give it one."

       The best things about us can also be the best things, but usually it is the other way around, she reflected dolefully.

       "And if someone should ask you where you got it, just tell them that you bought it from a pawn shop," she added in afterthought.

       "Where did you get it?" the boy inquired.

       "It belonged to your grandfather once before he gave it to your mother," Ellone responded.  "If you ever see her again, she will be able to recognize you by that ring."

       Young Squall brightened up at the thought and nodded fervently.

       "Now listen to me carefully, dear," she told him with unmistakable urgency In her voice.  "There is something about that ring.  You may only have one heart to lose, but you would rather lose that than this.  Keep it safe."

       For a moment she wondered if she was going into too much detail for him to handle.  He was so young, after all.  Whether he fully understood her or not, the boy nodded and strung the necklace around his neck.

       Ellone looked up into the evening sky.  Dark clouds were approaching from the horizon.

       "I need to leave now, Squall," she said quietly.

       "So you're really leaving?" Squall repeated.

       From her countenance, Ellone clearly did not want to do so.  It simply was not her decision to make.

       "Let's play a game of hide-and-go-seek," she suggested, "starting tomorrow."

       "Really?" Squall replied in relief.  "So long as you aren't leaving.  I'll find you!"

       "Now come on inside with me," Ellone implored.  "There is a storm coming."

       And that was it.  The next morning she was gone.

       The day came when Squall was adopted by Balamb Garden and placed on a ship against his will.  He remembered the horrid experience vividly.

       "You are going the wrong way!" he kept on shouting to the sailors who could not have cared less.

       "I don't want to go this way!" Squall hollered.  "My mother is in the opposite direction!"

       He tried to jump over the side but one of the buffer sailors restrained him.  Squall would remember the face of the man who stepped between him and freedom that day.  He vowed to take vengeance on him for separating him from his mother.  One day, when he had honed the skills that this Garden of theirs was going to teach him, he would hunt that man down.

       "Just let me go!" he shouted without the use of any of his limbs to back it up.

       As they left the orphanage further and further behind, Squall felt his heart being wrenched from his chest and tossed into the ocean.  He did not speak another word on the black ship.  He did not speak another word even after he arrived at Balamb unless he had to.  And he did not cry.  They could snatch his dreams from him, but tears were worth their weight in gold, so those he kept to himself.  Once enrolled in Garden, he frequented the beach and tossed pebbles in the direction of the orphanage during seventh period break each day, but he never cried.

       Squall let loose another zinger and watched it whistle though the air.

       Diablos coughed on purpose to get his attention before it packed into the deep.

       "Nice throw," the demon rasped.

       His mind still on the past, Squall did not bother to answer.  He never did carry out his vow to kill the sailor.  As it turned out, Squall recognized him years later as a friend of his father.  Squall could assume now, looking back, that Laguna had wanted Ward to go to the orphanage and personally guarantee the safety of his son to Balamb Garden prior to giving him the post of his presidential aide.  Ward had not changed much except for the scar on his face, which was how Squall could pick him out of the crowd after he graduated.

       His thoughts were broken by the girl's pulling at something he was lying on.  He moved aside just as she put her weight behind one great tug, inevitably resulting in her falling back with a surprised cry.  When she sat back up, he saw that she was clutching onto a small purse.  From the way they glimmered under the sun, Squall guessed that the prime composition material was dragon scale.

       The girl rubbed the parts of her body that she had bumped from her flop crossly and then turned her attention to her purse.   At first she was just fingering with articles inside but soon she turned to fumbling around in alarm.

       "What are you looking for?" he inquired with concern in his voice.  "Have you lost something?"

       She did not answer but he noticed that her sounds of anxiety intensified.

       "You don't even know how to communicate with me," he muttered, unable to conceal his disappointment, "much less talk and tell me who you are or what you've lost." 

       There has to be other ways to ascertain her identity, Squall assured himself.  She must have something on her of some indicative value.

       In a last ditch attempt to find whatever item had seized her, she dumped the entire content of her bag onto the sand.  Squall found himself looking at a nice array of fish fins, water crystals, orihalcons, and turtle shells, beyond the given female necessities.  At least that is what he  assumed all the mystifying things were if he had not seen them in Trepe's Monogram of Items Dropped By Monsters, which he had memorized as a prerequisite back in his days as a SeeD trainee.

       Her cache of items gave him no clearer picture of who she was or what she did for a living, but the common nature of the items led him to believe that she was not hydrophobic.

       Or maybe she just likes the color blue? he considered alternately.

       He heard the sound of clapping from behind him and spun around.

       "Excellent deduction, my lord," Diablos applauded in a way that could have passed as brownnosing except his nose was black and he was way too sarcastic.

       "Hide yourself before she sees you and has a heart attack!" Squall hissed, trying to glare at the GF and look back at her with deep concern at the same time.

       She was still flipping through her things with the same amount of agitation.

       "So pushy," Diablos huffed, steadily fading into transparency as if thin layers of paint of the surroundings were being coated over him one at a time.

       "And I was just about to congratulate you on discovering that she is rabies-free," the Guardian Force continued to sneer in his invisibility.

       "Leviathan," Squall called out, deciding to ignore the comment.

       The serpentine GF materialized from a mist.

       "Yessss, master?" it responded with a lazy yawn.

       "Humor her for a while," he commanded.  "If she really has a penchant for the water then she has probably heard of you."

       "What a lofty purpose I have today," Leviathan murmured dryly.  "I'm sure all my countless eons of GF training will be put to the test."

       Squall's expression settled somewhere between a frown and a scowl.

       After grumbling about being crossed with his being forced to skip his ritual sun-basking exercises and about his master's total lack of sensitivity to a cold-blooded creature's needs, all of which he did just below Squall's range of hearing, Leviathan slithered over to his fretting assignment and introduced himself as politely as a seriously pissed off water dragon could.

       There was some initial panic from her end, but a few reassuring gestures from Squall quickly assuaged the problem.  Squall sighed in relief and then got to his feet.

       He had to get away for a few minutes.  He had to collect his thoughts.  He had to check his bike.  He had to get back to Garden.

       And he had to take her with him.

       _I can't just leave her here_, he reasoned with himself.

       _Why not? _he argued in the negative just for the sake of fairness.  _After all, this is where I found her.  She can walk back to wherever she came from._

       _Well, genius_, the affirmative side defended, _she obviously can't be from anywhere in the locality if she can't even speak the language._

       _Then taking her back to Nova Trabia won't help her either because we are short-staffed in the translating department_, was the rebuttal from the negative.

       "I hear you, boss," Diablos hissed suddenly.

       Squall lifted an eyebrow.

       "Actually, I don't, so stop looking so worried," the GF pacified him, "but by all means, think aloud."

       "I'm wondering what to do with her," Squall informed him.

       Diablos looked over to the object of his master's dilemma and devoured her with his eyes, an action which would have communicated to any onlooker that he found her good enough to eat.

       "Oh yeah, boss," he running his tongue over his lips, "she certainly looks ripe to me."

       Squall ran his fist into the demonic Guardian Force's stomach.

       After a muffled cough, Diablos emended, "I meant she looks riparian."

       _Ingenious save_, Squall thought.

       It was all happening so fast that it was making his head spin.  He could hardly believe it himself.

       Sensing the trouble, Diablos grinned and asked in mock disbelief, "Don't you believe in love at first sight?"

       "No," Squall replied flatly, "I prefer not to put too much stock in clichés."

       "You have to believe in something, master," the dark speculated.

       "Misconceptions," answered Squall, "followed by deception and betrayal in one direction or another, and oftentimes both."

       Diablos whistled, or attempted to.  Because of his fangs, the noise he ended up making sounded more like a sickly rasp.

       "I think you two are a perfect pair, master," the GF ventured to say.

       "I don't pay you to think," Squall remarked in the breeze.

       "You don't pay me at all, sir," Diablos pointed out, his forked tongue darting in and out between his pearl incisors to signal his excitation.

       "Then what is the verdict of this free assessment you're giving me?" Squall asked, settling back listlessly to receive the GF's latest in keen observations.

       "It is the perfect romance," explained Diablos.  "In the only place where words speak louder than actions, neither one of you speaks, and so you can never do each other harm." 

       "The demon actually has a point there," Leviathan hissed from five meters away, "for once."

       The girl looked up from Leviathan to Squall and blinked in confusion.

       "That's your definition of romance?" Squall repeated.  "Where words hurt more than actions?"

       "You're right on the Gil," affirmed the other.

       "What would you know about romance?" Squall posed caustically and resumed his observation of the mystery woman.  She was patting Leviathan on the head as if he were a puppy dog.

       The memory of Lunar* flashed before Diablos' eyes.  The elfin queen bedizened in a gown of the purest platinum.  He had not seen her since Hyne stripped her of her and banished her to forever walk in the mortal realm at some undetectable frequency.  Over the epochs he had tried to find her, wandering around without a destination and randomly switching to different frequencies, but he never succeeded.  He might have even walked right by her or through her without either one the wiser.  Eternal life without interaction with either man or GF was virtually a punishment worse than death.

       But it was not worse than his guilt.  Diablos would have chuckled sinisterly here if the joke weren't on him.  For duty, he had informed the Great Hyne of Lunar's seditious motives, but instead of a reward, Diablos only garnered the addendum of another curse – the curse of a conscience.  This gift he won for betrayal, and guilt was one cruel master who collected triple of what debt was owed to romance.  Thus, in a single breath, he not only lost the one being who cared about him, but his self-respect as well.

       Hyne was truly devious.  Morality was the worst thing that could have happened to him.  A broken heart was the second.  Now he possessed both.

       A single tear rolled down his cracked face and dropped to the sand with an acidic sizzle.

          *Barrett Machain (b_machain@hotmail.com)

           gives the full account of Lunar's exile in

           "The Exiled Guardian."

       "Diablos?" Squall checked when there was no answer.  _I can smell the sulfur so he has to be lurking around here still._

       "Yeah, I wouldn't know anything about it," Diablos replied clumsily.

       Squall checked the position of the sun in relation to the horizon and quickly estimated the time.  It looked to him like it was the right time to leave.  He left Diablos and walked back to where the young lady sat, still amusing herself with Leviathan.

       It took some persuasion to get her to leave without whatever it was that she had lost, but in the end, she let it go.  The SeeD Commander helped her gather up her scattered belongings from the sand and led her back to his motorbike.

       It met them halfway, he having activated the auto-ignition, autopilot, and key-holder auto-find with the radio remote on his key chain.  Wordlessly she took the spare helmet that he produced from the glove compartment and offered to her.  She then copied his movements in equipping the advanced headgear and climbed onto the bike behind him.

       "Did you want to stay out here and finish sun-bathing, Leviathan?" Squall asked while he flipped his visor down over his eyes.

       The armless serpent tried to make a thumbs-up gesture.

       Squall understood just the same.  He revved the bike, checked to see if his passenger was safely aboard, and then took off.

       He couldn't very well talk to her through his helmet, and even if he could, the wind would have drowned out what promised to be a lively conversation.  In all probability, though, it would have to have been a monologue that he initiated because he doubted that she would say even one word.  On the other hand, given that he was not to prone to long speeches or any speech at all, it could just as well turn out to be an embarrassing silence.

       _Perhaps Diablos actually had a point_, Squall reconsidered.

       Even though he had already accelerated to a dangerous speed of 210 kilometers per hour, Squall felt compelled to tear his eyes off the road he was burning and to check the digital clock on the A09's dashboard.  Quistis was sure to have another class lined up for him.

       _Differential mathematics, sociology with eigenvectors, logistics, war stratagems, or physics with applications most likely_, he listed in his head.

       He remembered that the deadline to declare which weapon skill one wanted to "major" in was today by 1700.  Declaring majors was always a mystery to him because it only applied to those pursuing a weapon's major whose prerequisites were so many in number that unless the student committed himself entirely to those courses, he would not be able to graduate.  For all other majors, no declaration was needed because there was still time to take the courses needed to meet to the requirements.  To him, the entire process was a moot, but SeeD was all about being systematic.  Without the system, you would turn out like Seifer, the classic cautionary tale against having dreams and chasing them blindly.  Hold fast to dreams before they get a hold over you.

       Squall's eyes narrowed at the thought.  He chose to focus harder on navigating the road.

       If his information was right, Seifer, Raijin, and Fuujin were participants in a missionary expedition to uncover some religious artifacts right on the outskirts of Nova Trabia.

       He was made aware of how much harder he was squeezing the throttle because the girl suddenly tightened the ring her hands made around his waist.

       Squall still did not know what to make of Seifer Almasy after all these years.  Idealists and hopeless romantics were so much easier to exploit, and Squall was sure Ultimecia knew that.  He tried not to have dreams anymore, seeing how well his own fared in his childhood and further confirmed by the nightmare that Seifer's turned out to be for everyone.  If there were to be any more dreams for Squall, he would not be foolish enough to put his faith in them, much less be foolhardy enough to chase after them.

       The last time he and Seifer was fighting on the same side was back during the SeeD entrance exam – the Dollet run.  Since then he had crossed swords with the deluded ex-Disciplinary Committee head three times and tasted the old-fashioned goodness of Seifer's generosity in a torture chamber.  Seifer was not on Squall's list of favorite persons.  Being Seifer's counterpart, foil, and doppelganger was to be the bane of his life, but despite this fact, to add insult to injury, fate had perversely assigned him the role of being Seifer's playmate.   And having anything to do with Seifer Almasy was like playing Russian roulette with all sex chambers loaded.

       The only thing they had in common, literally, and that would probably also be a significant burden in his life, was Rinoa.  Perhaps his life would be easier if these two great antagonisms of his ran off with each other without either one plotting to kill the other.

       When Diablos was sure that they were out of distance, he readjusted his frequency so as to partially restore the visibility of his body.  From there, it took some work, but he managed at length to rip off his mask.  He then leaned over a puddle left by the receding tide and checked his face.  A handsome face bedizened with golden curls but with a pair of blue eyes that spoke of the deepest woe stared back at him*.

       With an angry cry the Guardian Force flung the ghastly mask in the air and blasted it into immateriality with a Demi spell.  Afterwards, he waited dejectedly in front of the pool for the accursed lock to reappear over his face as it always did since the days of Hyne.

       "Yeah," Diablos repeated to himself emptily when it did, "I wouldn't know anything about it."

       The demon fell to his knees and raised his arms.  When he felt the charcoal-textured face that was not his own with his claws, the ageless Guardian Force began to sob.

       The curse had not yet been lifted.

          *DemonQueen19 (demonqueen19@yahoo.com)

           gives the full account of the Diablos' face in

           "The Face Behind The Mask."

       The resonating chamber on the custom exhaust pipe thundered all the way to Nova Trabia Garden as the pair raced back.  Squall knew from the few silent lessons in aerodynamics from Ward that the rumbling was even louder for bystanders that he sped by because the A09 motorcycle actually created and carried with it a widening, low-pressure wind tunnel in the volume of fluid it moved through.  The original reasoning behind getting it custom fitted was because the dealer at the shop promised that it would strike fear into the hearts of those who heard it.  So far, though, it seemed to only inspire looks of annoyance.  Squall was sure that had he been someone like Zell instead of the Commander of SeeD, Sergeant Jay would have slapped him with a 40-Gil boom ticket for unruly noise pollution long ago.

       The A09's console had issued a blinking warning light when Squall topped 250 kilometers per hour, but he had ignored it, knowing full well that the vehicle's top speed was in the range of 320.  He was also aware of the tremendous compromise the speed was to directional maneuvering and horizontal translation – as in he would have less than a second to dodge obstacles 70 meters away – but for the price he paid for the bike, it would most certainly come equipped with various safeguards against otherwise unavoidable collisions.

       Such an emergency situation was unfolding before his eyes.  Because Nova Trabia Commission of Wildlife Safety had been marginalized in the previous year's municipal funding distribution process, they were not able to post as many "Chocobo Crossing" signs as they would have liked so far away from the city.  As a result, Squall did not catch sight the tawny mother chocobo and her line of chicobos against the withering saw grass until he was nearly on top of them.

       _Let's test the hydraulics on her, shall we?_ he thought as he reflexively punched one of the red buttons on his left handle.  If he had estimated the mother chocobo's height correctly, they would clear her scruffy head by five centimeters and coast sixty meters in the air before landing.

       The bike quickly reacted and the anti-gravity propulsion boosters fired up with a loud roar.  The girl yelped at the sudden jerk and tightened her hold yet again.  Squall took the time to check his rearview mirror as they left the ground and sailed over the biped birds.  After they landed with a soft bump, he congratulated himself at having avoided making a bloody mess on the prairie.   

       As they drew closer to the Garden, Squall tried to ease up on the throttle and maneuver as quietly as possible around to the back.  There he pulled into the Garden's garage and zipped past the automated security checks.  After a few more turns, he pitted the bike in his privilege parking space on the first floor. 

       "Okay," Squall told his companion while setting the bike up on its prop, "we're here."

       She seemed to understand the gist of what he was saying because she steadied herself with his arm and hopped off obediently.

       He had to change out of his grungy, orange t-shirt, rolled up jeans, and sandals before he could walk around the Garden as the authority figure Cid was paying him to be.  As much as he did not want to make condoning his being squalid a part of his being Squall, the shower would have to wait; he was late enough as it was.

       As his foresight had dictated for him to do, he kept one of his regular outfits in the lockers in the garage.  Squall headed in that direction, handing off his new companion to one of the garage attendants with the explicit instructions to escort her to the cafeteria and find a public relations representative to find out who she was and where she needed to go to get home.

       Just when he was done changing, he spotted a pack of Malboro cigarettes lying at the bottom of his locker.  Squall paused for a second and remembered that on Selphie's schedule, the smoke detectors in this locker room would not be installed for another three days.

       Squall estimated how much more time he could allocate for a little break that he was confidant he could make up for during the rest of the day.  Finally he decided that he could afford to burn five minutes, and so he sat down, opened the pack, and carefully drew out a Malboro roll.  He nearly dropped it as he was lighting it because Quistis' authoritative voice boomed over the Garden intercom:

       "Commander, please report to the front gate."

       Though she did not say how urgent the situation was, Squall could sift it from her words.  He rolled his eyes, pocketed the cigarette, and threw the rest of his articles back into his locker.  After giving the locker door one final slam, he hurried out towards the quad.  He spotted the signature pink skirt and velvet vest pacing back and forth across the bridge from across the courtyard.

       He waited until she had her back turned towards him and was heading back over the bridge for the umpteenth time before he went over and caught up with her just so he could have the initiative and first say.

       "What situation are we looking at?" he spoke even before he tapped her on the shoulder to turn her around.

       "Oh!  There you are!" Quistis exclaimed, her face flushing.

       "What is the situation?" he repeated.

       "How like you," she remarked resentfully  "Not even a hello."

       He did not say anything.  Instead, he just waited for the answer to his question.

       Quistis sighed.

       "The Shumi sent us a video message earlier this morning," she then informed him.  "Something of theirs was stolen."

       "How long ago?" Squall questioned.

       "They aren't sure," she replied.

       Squall turned to get off the bridge and headed for the corridor to the officer's lounge.  Quistis ran after him with a frown on her face.

       "Irvine and Zell?" Squall guessed at whom the Shumi were targeting their grievances.

       "At least look at me when you talk to me," Quistis chided.

       She sounded hurt so Squall slowed his steps.  The few Garden students that had risen early for a morning job around the quad looked over in the their direction with curious eyes.

       He turned and looked at her.  She was trembling slightly like one who had accidentally said what she hadn't meant to say aloud.

       "I just wanted to know why you didn't log back in last night," she finally found the courage to add.  _Was it because of me?  Please don't let it be because of what passed between us_ _last evening_.

       "Why?" Squall countered without a single iota of passion or compassion.  "Did you miss me?"

       She did not answer, not that he had expected her to.  In fact, he knew she would not verbally confirm what they both already knew to be true.  Yet, the question, once voiced so coldly, had sounded more rhetorical than he had intended, and after seeing the helplessness on her face, he regretted his choice of words.

       _I should apologize_, he thought.

       She did not give him the chance.

       "I don't know what to make of you," Quistis confessed in frustration.  "You change your attitudes so quickly that I can't even follow.  Who were you yesterday?  What were you trying to tell me?"

       He was not sure how to proceed so he took her hand in his.  She started, not anticipating his touch.

       "Look," Squall started over less formally while drawing her closer to him, "you shouldn't take anything I do or say to heart or we will both end up regretting it."

       "What are we, then, Squall?" Quistis wondered sadly and softly.

       This discussion was making him feel uncomfortable.  He was never comfortable when he did not know the answer to a question, and Quistis was one SeeD test that he could not study for.

       Dropping her hand, he concluded, "Some things are better left ambiguous."

       For a moment she produced no visible reaction, but had he placed his ear against her chest, he might have heard something breaking on the inside.  At length, she nodded.

       Squall could not think of anything else to say to her, but the air between them was awkward, as if the conversation had not yet ended.  He desperately needed an out.

       A girl with a pretty pair of pink eyes and cascading silver hair had been staring at him over Quistis' back through the glass windows in the 'Garden Ricebox' diner.  Having never seen her before, Squall took the opportunity to nab one of the passerby students who looked like he was in need of something to do and told him to ascertain the identity of the girl and to then take care of her accordingly.  In the process, he conspicuously dropped Quistis' hand.

       "Uh, how do I do that, sir?" the student asked nervously, immediately recognizing who Squall was.  Quistis almost felt sorry for the kid.

       Squall hated when the trainees acted like it was their first day at the Garden.  The SeeD Commander took out a note from his jacket pocket and scribbled on it while laying out his directions to the student:

       "If she is a transfer student, check her ID and transcript, or, if she claims to be enrolled here, quiz her on something she would only know if she was an actual student, like rooming assignments, names of teachers, class times, the lunch menu, and whatnot.  If she is an imposter, detain her without revealing your intention to do so, and call for the Disciplinary Committee before she has a chance to sabotage our facilities or engage in espionage.  Sergeant Jay will handle it from there.  If she is a client, however, call the PR reps, get her some meal tickets, arrange for a personal tour guide to escort her around for the entire day, and then reserve a room for her in the guest suite sectors until one of the officers can debrief her.  Here is your tardy excuse slip because you're going to be late for your first class.  This ought to get you out of trouble.  Now go."

       The student took the slip and hustled into the 'Garden Ricebox' and Squall continued on his way to the officer's lounge to view the Shumi transmission that was growing older by the minute.  He just hoped the series of delays so far had not exacerbated the situation or escalated the conflict.

       The moment of tension between them having passed, Quistis watched as Squall disappeared into the corridor.  With the air of hopelessness and defeat, she parked her forehead in her palm and whimpered.

       "Oh, Shiva," she moaned sadly.  "What do I do now?"

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	23. Setting 20: 2315 DAY 21, Deling City, Ca...

**Setting 20: 2315 DAY 21, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion B1**

_"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."  
  
_

-Russell, Bertrand****

       _W__hat did I do now? Specifically directed information interrogative and annoyance_

       _I want some answers from you, QyQy  Imperative directive, deliberate neglect, and gravity_

       _About?  Elliptical interrogative and dismissive boredom_

       _Explain all these outrageous energy expenditures on the logs  Imperative directive and suspicion_

       …  Contempt

       _Well_?  Elliptical interrogative, tested tolerance, imbedded warning

       _Am I supposed to say something_?  Interrogative, smugness, and disinterest

       _You are damned well aware!  Critical declaration, imbedded, imputed warning, and anger_

       _I have to put 'Caraway' through operations constantly because he keeps breaking out  Preplanned explanation, wishful thinking, declaration of self-exculpation_

       _At the cost of compromising the mission when you cause electrical shorts all over __this city?  Derisive rhetorical question, implied, imputed warning, and intimated challenge_

       _This is the cost of controlling him for extended durations_  Mitigating clarification, referential reminder, and steadiness

       _The city is on alert_  Declaration and hint directive

       _This is the way it has to be_  Stalwart declaration and exasperation

       …  Lingering suspicion

       _My mission objectives from the Carrier are clear  Declaration of self-exculpation and bloated patriotism_

       …  Uncertainty and discomfiture

       _Are yours_?  Elliptical interrogative, imbedded challenge, and skepticism

       _Just what are you insinuating there_?  Information interrogative and anger

       _I think, FeFe, you are starting to develop a sympathy for them over the Clan_  Derisive declaration and scorn

       _I am just trying to rationalize everything_  Defensive declaration and denial

       _I know_  Condescending declaration and false sympathy

       _I know you know_  Stalwart declaration and sudden annoyance

       _Anyway, __with the meticulous coverage you've provided over these years on 'Caraway,' I think I know how to run his office_  Patronizing declaration, mock deference, and self-assured dismissal

       _You'd have to with all the time you're putting into it without any overseer_  Self-righteous retort, contemptuousness, and intimated challenge

       …  Indignance and annoyance

       …  Smugness and imbedded challenge

       _Any news from the 'Archangel' unit_?  Mitigating concession, sudden interest, hint directive, and interrogative

       _Nothing new_  Complacent declaration

       _No news is good news for you, I suppose_  Calm declaration and latent affront

       …   Pause and frustration

       _And the status of subject 'Ellone'_?  Elliptical interrogative and mild curiosity

       _She is as you left her_  Calm declaration and patronizing reminder

       _Excellent_  Marked satisfaction

       _So what is on the docket for today_?  Casual interest

       _Have you seen the digital recording for last night?  Rhetorical interrogative, hint directive, and high hopes_

       _I did not know there was one  Denial, interest, and dread_

       _Take a look for yourself  Imperative directive, smugness, and pleasure_

       _First tell me where you got this  Imperative directive and suspicion_

       _From one of our scouts who was monitoring the cliffs yesterday  Preplanned explanation and information declaration_

       _Oh!  Awareness, numbness, and shock_

       …  Eager anticipation and giddiness

       _So_?  Elliptical interrogative, imbedded challenge, suppressed disdain, and dismissal

       _It means more when taken in conjunction to this latest recording_

       _It is real  Casual acknowledgement and internal revel_

       _Where did you get this?  Interrogative, numbness, and suspicion_

       _From one of our scouts who was monitoring the beach this morning  Preplanned explanation and information declaration_

       _Interesting  Passive declaration and internal conflict_

       _Now do you believe me when I say the entire race is depraved?  Interrogative, stalwart proposition, biased conclusion, and superiority_

       _You still cannot condemn the entire population for having one philanderer  Passive declaration, defiance_

       _Then I suppose their society finds it acceptable to be lying under two different women in two days' time while indebted to yet a third one_?  Overly agreeable concurrence, brusquely feigned deference, condescension, and blatant sarcasm

       _I am sure there is some explanation for this_  Calm declaration

       _If it needs explanation, then it is wrong_  Didactic quotation, bias, and superciliousness

_You know that is not what I think_  Denial, irritation, and patronizing reminder

       _Are you willing to concede that he could have murdered comrade PuPu?  Stalwart declaration, self-assuredness, and accusation with finality_

       _The last recording from PuPu is ultimately not enough evidence to support that claim  Earnest opinion, hesitancy, and internal struggle_

       _Truth will declare itself soon enough  Didactic quotation, self-assuredness, and insinuation of stalwart conclusion_

       …  Pause, uncertainty, and fruitlessness

       _In the meantime, go secure 'Caraway' for another operation  Imperative directive and undaunted dismissal_

       …  Pause and reluctance

       …  Obstinacy, anticipation, and implied, imputed challenge

       _Fine  Grudgingly conceded accordance_

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

If you didn't catch this in Setting 01, the syntactical structure might seem a bit weird at first glance, because I have a unique method of transcribing what the aliens are communicating.

The "stage directions" after each line they communicates are necessary, and they aren't stage directions; PuPu's alien clan does not communicate with their voices, only their thoughts. They don't have facial expressions either, which means to communicate elements such as sarcasm or emotion, I have to add the "stage directions" and, if you noticed, keep the emotion-denoting punctuation marks (question or exclamation) outside of the brackets.

In actuality, those "stage directions" are called the "pragmatics" of language. The words they actually "speak" are called the "semantics" of language. Because they aren't actually making any sounds with their mouths, I used brackets instead of "quotations" to indicate what they want to communicate with their thoughts. Also, throughout the rest of the story, thoughts are _italicized_ and speech is unmodified. So what the aliens want to communicate show up _like this_.

However, even by including the pragmatics after the semantics, there is still no way I can differentiate for you which alien is which. If they did not greet each other when a third or fourth being waltzed in, or say their respective names in each line, we would have no idea who the addresser and addressee were for any given statement. That is the flaw of indirect narration, I'm afraid, and I will try to find was to rectify it.

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	24. Setting 21: 2320 DAY 21, Downtown Nova T...

**Setting 21: 2320 DAY 21, Downtown Nova Trabia Commercial District**

_"There is honor even among thieves."_

-Anonymous

_   "F_inally," he hailed in exasperation and threw his cigarette away.  It bounced on the roof tiles and then rolled over the edge.

       _Thought the lights would never go out_, he muttered.

       He had been waiting for nearly two cigarette-lengths' time in the chilly evening air whose temperature had been steadily dropping since the sun had gone down.  Being so far away from the coast and sitting in the lee of the surrounding mountains, Nova Trabia was not as temperate after hours as was the beach a good distance away.

       The weapons shop he had intended on breaking into across the street had closed twenty minutes late today, forcing him to wait on the rooftop of the opposite building and brave the weather in his tattered cloak.

       He picked up the red cloth and peered through the bullet holes.  The rest of his wardrobe was riddled with them as well.  The fabric he held between his fingers was so thin that it could not even block the wind, much less bullets.  If not for the fact that this cloak was the last gift from Sujie that he ever received, he would have tossed it already.  He was quite sure that it did not have any functional utility whatsoever.  After exhaustive testing, he had concluded that the material could not even keep a fire going for long.  And it definitely was not edible.

       _But maybe I'm being too harsh on her_, he reconsidered.  _After all, she did buy this for me at the Galbadia mall and it is pretty warm around those parts year-round._

       He did not have the best opinion of the Galbadia shopping mall.  The ludicrously high prices and no-refund policy were contributory factors to this aversion he fostered, but most significant was how she would take advantage of the fact that all he was good for was holding the bags while she tore the stores apart, one at a time, one floor to the next.  She was very methodical.

       He pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders.  His free hand drifted to the scar over his heart.

       _I mean, it's not like she _wanted_ me to freeze to death_, he reasoned.

       It was more wishful thinking than reason, given Sujie's mischievous character.  He could never tell what she thinking, so her conduct was a constant surprise.

       _Hell_, he added, _half the time I can't even tell what _I'm _thinking_.

       He leaned over the edge of the roof precariously and peered at the ground floor of the bank eight stories below.  The main lighting had been shut off and the dim security night-lights were slowly warming up to take their place.  Restorative illumination took about two minutes.  If the shopkeeper followed his routine, he would take a minute to complete the lock-up procedures and then another half-minute to set the shop's security features.

       This meant that he would have about thirty seconds to descend eight flights, break in, do some lifting, and trip every wire in the store in the process without having to worry that the cameras would catch his face.  Given his superhuman speed and the low level of lighting, all they would pick up was a big red blur.

       He wondered briefly if the local law enforcers were getting tired of staring at a screen full of hazy, red pixels, naively viewing and reviewing them as if each new inspection would bring them closer to identifying him.  Their best bet at coming up with a composite of him was to collaborate with the Garden Disciplinary Committee, but he knew that jurisdictional conflicts and inflated egos on both sides would preclude the possibility of a joint operation to arrest him.

       He frowned at the memory of his run-in with the Disciplinary Committee.  All the basketball players that had gotten a good look at him he had killed or permanently hospitalized.  That left two people who got close enough to view his face: The trigger-happy sergeant and the blonde they called "Rinoa."  He had no qualms about putting the former down for the rest of his miserable life the next time he caught up with him, but he had a soft spot for the girl.  He would eventually have to decide how high a priority his anonymity was.

       He chuckled at how easy it was to fool the crowd of Garden students.  It was universal knowledge even in Galbadia that Squall Leonhart was the frontrunner for the position of the Nova Trabia Garden Headmaster, but the fame greatly outpaced the face.  He had never seen Leonhart so he gambled that none of the trainees on the court had either.  Throwing the name around and acting the part was all it took to make his little ruse a success, to the benefit of the lady in distress of course.

       _And what a lady she was!_  he reflected, whistling.

       Feeling that his mind was wandering, he shook his head and grinded his teeth together.

       _Have to concentrate!_ he scolded himself.  _Can't be distracted by every wildflower on the side of the road or I'll never get to where I'm going._

Still, he could not wholly blame himself for occasionally digressing and dwelling on her because her perfume had been so potent that it left a lasting reminder on the front of his shirt even after a week's time had passed.  She would be so much easier for him to kill if she did not smell so damned nice.  When she had cuddled up against him, he had detected the scent of rose, vanilla, and something that he could not quite put his finger on.  The pungency had rendered him careless, which was what allowed the sergeant to get off a cheap shot in the first place.  It might have also saved her because he only went back to block the bullet for her out of his not wanting such a good smell terminated by an amateur firearm slipup.

       He cracked his knuckles.  He was going to look forward to ending Sergeant Jay.

       The gunshot wound between his shoulder blade and sternum was healing nicely after a week, but it still ached in the mornings.  It was ironic how he had the nice aroma left from Rinoa's hair on the left side of his shirt and the big bloodstain on the right.  His chivalry had cost him more than he had bargained for, and it would have been an even messier situation for him had her cowboy friend not stepped in and supplied the diversion.

       _I suppose I owe him one_, he conceded.

       With his injury, he would have to be very optimistic to try to subsequently disarm the entire Disciplinary Committee without getting shot again.  It was smart to be realistic sometimes; one would live longer.  In his case, he was just barely able to make his escape over the wall.

       _For starters_, he mused, _I could probably get him a better gun_.

       Picking pockets and petty theft had been fun for the first week in Nova Trabia, but after another two, had become relatively uneventful.  It was time for him to move on to bigger jobs, like the stunt he was trying to pull off now.  If he successfully made off with the entire weapons arsenal, he could start over and found another underground militia.  He could get back into dealing sensitive information, be it acquisition and delivery for cliental or for personal use.  Information that could be exploited by blackmail or had the potential of toppling governments and institutions was in high demand in Galbadia especially, and it was highly profitable to be doing that sort of business.

       This was not to say that the amount of Gil was not a reflection of the amount of danger involved in his trade.  With each transaction, a new enemy was made of whomever he had relieved of the precious secret, and once wronged, no one seemed to give a damn about the proverbial "Don't shoot the messenger" defense.  It was even worse when both sides were in on the game and had to bid against each other for possession of each other's or their own secrets because afterwards he would have to worry about possible set-ups in all his future transactions with both unhappy kingpins and dodge their goons in his downtime.  It was the perilous lifestyle of a data mercenary that he had gotten use to over the past few years when his organization burgeoned in the wake of the mass revolutions and behind-closed-doors putsches in Galbadia.

       And it had cost him everything and the one person he had ever loved.

       _And probably the one person who has ever loved me_, he owned up.

       The laws of the land dictated that orphans should spend their youth unloved.  He was one of the pegs that fit perfectly into its hole.  Another bylaw for those like him was to possess limited memories from their childhood and to be ignorant of their origin.  To the best of his knowledge, he had sprung into the world fully grown.  From where and when was irrelevant.  He wasn't even sure if his life had any meaning until the day he met her.

       His quest to discover his own significance might as well have been a quest to discover his significant other.  Prior to that day, he had only one memory – foraging for food, resorting to stealing when it was necessary, squatting on abandoned houses and participating in street brawls.  It was also his first and most monotonous memory.  Before that there was nothing.

       For no particular reason, he found himself wandering through a marketplace in the Galbadia countryside near a Podunk town called "Shawl's Stone."  The local magistrate was Duke something-or-another, a distant relative of the Delings, and, in his opinion after stepping within the city limits for just thirty seconds, a moron.  He did not know what else to call a man who had, on every wall in town, posted fliers advertising the betrothal of his daughter and to the winner of a scheduled fighting tournament the next day.  To attract more suitors, he was also promising the title of half of his estate as her dowry.

       _Rubbish_, he had scoffed.  _I'm sure the girl is thrilled to have daddy play matchmaker._

       From the chatter of two garrulous arms-dealers, he learned that the Duke had lost his other daughter some time ago.  They continued to talk about the Duke's property while he walked around their premises and looked over the weapons lying out on display under the open sky.

       _What a convenient way to lose the other_, he fancied, eyeing a pair of silver dirks.

       "If she were still alive," he mused further, "he would probably be boorish enough to promise them both to the same person."

       With a slick sleight of hand, he walked away from the tent two daggers heavy with none being the wiser, proud as a peacock of having saved himself the 2500 Gil that he didn't have.  It so much easier to move about unnoticed when dressed to fit a profile so low that others prefer see right past than to acknowledge.  In his gray rags and unchecked hair tied in a carefree ponytail, he fit the humble mold well.

       After turning at the corner and walking down two blocks, he had successfully borrowed three honeyed rice-cakes, a coconut shake, and a nicely-wrapped chrysanthemum flower, all without their venders' knowledge.  He figured he could call his debt with them even because he was perfectly willing to let them have twice what he owed them if they ever asked him to repay them and if he had the means to do so.  It did not bother him that his reasoning was founded on two impossible conditions.

       In the middle of enjoying his coconut shake and strolling down the sidewalk at his own pace, he was interrupted by an unanticipated run-in with a young woman in a gaudy, pink skirt moving at full speed.  After slamming into him, she ducked into a side alleyway without so much as a word of apology.  He was left on the curb with the rest of his shake streaming down the side of his shirt and pants.

       "Hey!" he called as she ran down the narrow passage between the two buildings.  The space across was a shoulder's length so only one person could possibly move through at the same time.

       _Where is she going in such a hurry?_ he wondered crossly, still chaffed about the spill.

       It would have made no difference if he had asked the question aloud because when he turned back around to face the street, the answer was staring at him straight in the face.  It was in the form of ten guys each dressed in a suit that did not fit him.  Each Mafioso came equipped with what he guessed was standard issue for them – a pair of dark sunglasses and a single gold earring.  He was sure that if they all took the time to try out each other's outfits and coordinate a series of trades, they could all end up in the appropriate sizes and look respectable.

       A quick check revealed that the alleyway was a dead end.

       She was gradually figuring it out too but was too far in to make it back out before they closed in on the one entrance and exit.

       "Why are they giving you such a tough time?" he asked as she was running back over.

       "It's my first day," she explained really quickly.  Looking over his shoulder, she became aware that her situation was hopeless.

       "You should look into switching fields, then," he advised critically.  "You look a bit young for this job."

       "Hey," the girl protested with her elbow in his back, "I wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't blocked the street and pushed me in here." 

       "Listen, missy, _you_ ran into _me_!" he shouted lividly.

       The ten fashion-design-reject bouncers were just paces away from his nose, their prey was going hysterical on his shirt, and there he was stuck numbly in the middle of it.  The window of opportunity for him to escape the imminent confrontation was rapidly closing.  There was still time for him to scale the walls or pull a speedy retreat.

       And against his better judgment, he stayed put.  In retrospect he would like to have done what he did because of chivalry or some romantic ideal, but in truth he just stood there because he did not have anything else to do that day.

       _Well_, he thought with a sigh, _too late now_.

       "Could you be any more conspicuous about your profession as a pimp?" he asked the man who was leading the throng.

       The girl tightened her grip on his shoulders and shook them as a warning to take more caution.

       "Step aside, kid," the toothless man he took to be the ringleader sneered, pulling off his shades, "unless you are dying to make your peace with Hyne."

       The man cackled at his own pun.  Sensing he was alone, he turned around and scowled at his cronies who then joined him in a chorus of laughter.

       "But I got here first!" he cried petulantly.  "Why should I be the one to move aside?"

       "You're obviously new in town," the gangster hissed menacingly, "if you don't know whom we work for."

       "So who are you gentlemen?" he inquired with exaggerated interest.

       "Some nerve for a newcomer, " one of the henchmen whispered to another.

       To him, they offered no answer.  Instead, the leader of the pack grinned evilly and suggested, "Get the Ifrit out of here while you can still walk, junior."

       While he was making his threat, he pulled a hatchet out of nowhere and waved it around to make his point clearer.

       The girl they were after gasped and pulled him backwards on reflex into the alley.

       "Don't be stupid," the man warned him further.  "We just want her.  This doesn't concern you." 

       He took a deep breath and wet his lips that were beginning to feel dry.

       "What about her?" he asked without budging.

       "This joint wasn't able to fork up the Gil for the daily 'protection fee' we collect," the goon explained, humoring the lad, "so we're taking her instead."

       _Judging from how early it is_, he guessed, _I doubt they would have made any bank to pay you._

       "Isn't she a little under-aged for you, old bag?" he questioned scornfully.

       The man raised his hatchet and rasped, "Why you little-"

       That was as far as he got because the addressee had swung his fist into his stomach.  The quick blow sent him flying over the heads of his mob squad and through the store window on the opposite side of the street.  The nine underlings gawked at their fallen leader sprawled among the shards of broken glass and then turned their gazes in unison back to him and the girl.

       She was busy dragging him by the collar further back into the passage, completely unaware or unconcerned that she was cutting off his respiration.

       He was convinced that his face was turning purple.  Briefly he considered punching her so that she would let go.  However, she finally did on her own volition which allowed him to stand up straight again and take some much needed gasps of air. 

       The narrow space between the two buildings would be a major damper on his acrobatic battle skills, which was why he preferred to fight in more open areas.  Close quarter combat was more of a second nature to him.  Yet, the width of the alley would only permit one assailant to face him at a time, thus precluding them capitalizing on their advantage in numbers.

       The nine remaining gangsters had recovered from the initial shock of watching their leader knocked off his feet by a street urchin that on any other day they would have thought about tipping a few Gil just so they would not have to look at him.  Each man pulled out his own wicked-looking machete and charged into the alleyway in single file.

       His companion was frantically searching for a way to climb over the wall behind them, and upon finding no feasible method, resorted instead to grabbing onto him tightly.

       "Let go," he grumbled and tried to brush her long brown hair out of his face.  It was getting tangled in his own frazzled clump and severely compromising his vision.

       She was clinging to him like a drowning Chimera.  It was really trying not to use his fist to facilitate shaking her off in light of the tense situation and impending danger.

       The bouncer who was first in line and closest to him took a swipe at his head.  It was a chop that he just barely ducked under.  The next slice was made to his chest region, from left to right.  This one he avoided by rolling backwards along the wall, and the blade ended up striking only brick.

       Before the man had a chance to draw the machete back and take another swing, he planted his left foot over the flat side of the blade and kicked the man's hand away from the handle with his right foot.  The thug cried out in pain and drew back his injured wrist.

       But the line was still pressing forward.  With the bottom of his shoe he slid the machete off the wall and into the air.  Before it reached the peak of its trajectory, he sent it flying on a new course with a quick kick aimed at an off angle.  The blade spiraled past the head of the first man and ricocheted off the sides of the two buildings back and forth until it had traveled through the entire line bounced out into the street.

       As if on cue, his nine assailants dropped to their feet, each covering some part of his own face and screaming in pain from cuts in his flesh or from something having been cut off.  When they struggled to get back up, he punched the first bouncer in the gut that thundered on impact.  The first man was close enough in proximity to the person behind him so when he flew back and struck the second, the second man hit the third, and so forth until the energy from the initial blow passed through them all and toppled them like a row of dominos.  The eighth and last one in line was the least fortunate because he took the brunt of the force and was catapulted out of the alleyway and into the lamppost stemming from the curb.  The metal shaft bent on impact.

       Each man left in the column reached down and inspected his own stomach with the same fearful look that grieved of having a rocket shot through their abdomens.  In their moment of hesitation, the youth threw his fist into the same place that it had landed the first time.  The effect this time was the seventh man's being propelled from the alley.

       Quickly realizing what was going on, the six men left standing all dropped onto their knees and groveled before him.

       "We surrender!" they cried in harmony.

       "Then apologize for this inconvenience," he ordered them sternly.

       They did so convincingly.

       "Now apologize to the lady," he added.

       They did and she flagged them off in response.  He grabbed her wrist and led her out of the cramped space, using the six kneeling men as steppingstones. 

       "What do you think you're doing?" she cried once they were back out in the open.  "Let go of me!"

       "You're welcome, ingrate," he said, trying to wipe the blood off of his shirt.

       "I didn't ask you to help me," the girl responded with a degree of pomp.  "I could have taken all of them myself."

       "Don't flatter yourself, sweetie," he retorted.  "I only helped because you owe me money."

       She flagged him off and, realizing that she was dressed only half-decently, tried to get past him and back into the sanctuary of brothel.  He grabbed her arm and held her firmly.

       "You're not going anywhere till we settle your debt," he told her.

       "What debt?" she protested.  "What do you want from me?"

       The sight of a beggar manhandling a struggling girl in a tight miniskirt did not go unnoticed.  

       "You spilled my coconut shake," he asserted accusingly.

       "So let's go to the stand down the road and I'll buy you another one," she offered.

       "You think you can just buy people off?" he replied angrily.

       "What kind of compensation were you looking for?" she demanded with tantamount ire.  "Did you want to spill a coconut shake on me and call it even?"

       "That drink meant a lot more to me than just the Gil it will cost you to buy me another one," he griped.

       "It's going to cost me the same amount you paid for it," the girl maintained and stamped her foot to make him take her seriously.

       She happened to stamp on his foot so it was hard for him not to take her seriously.  He winced and pulled his foot out from under her three-inch platforms.

       _To Ifrit with the latest in fashion_, he rationalized gloomily.  _I'm convinced that they wear those things for one reason – self-defense._

       "And we haven't even begun to quantify the reimbursement for physical injury and emotional distress," he pointed out in a tone less light than he would have used if he didn't have to be rubbing his toe through his worn sneaker at the same time.

       She crossed her arms and shot him a condescending glance. 

       "My father is a rich man," she told him.  "He can repay you for your services."

       "Yeah, right," he replied skeptically, "and my father is the President."

       The brunette placed her hands on her hips defiantly.  It was either the skin-hugging skirt or her exaggerated posture that was making her thighs look extraordinarily voluptuous.

       "But he is!" she insisted again, "and he _will_ pay you."

       "What kind of pampered princess would be working here?" he inquired, pointing at the sign hanging over the entrance of the brothel and looking back and forth between it and her jutting hips.

       "I told you already," she explained defensively, "this is my first day.  And I'm only doing it to get back at him."

       "Well," he rejoined after some consideration, "you certainly do _sound_ like a spoiled brat trying very hard to be rebellious."

       "Cut the sarcasm," the prostitute in training grumbled.

       He felt it was about time to change the subject so he said, "Hand me your purse."

       Without waiting for a reaction, he grabbed it from her hands quicker than she would have believed.

       "Help yourself," the girl remarked and rubbed her now empty hands together.  There was a dash of acid in her voice.

       He grunted in acknowledgement without pausing in his thorough search through her bag.

       "Are you robbing me?" she asked.  She could not help but lift an eyebrow at the impertinent timing.

       "What does it look like?" he retorted as he counted the change in her wallaby-skin wallet.

       "I'm feeling a bit violated here," the girl quipped, seeing some parts of her make-up kit and miscellaneous personals fall out of her purse and clatter against the sidewalk amidst his whirlwind search.

       He ignored her for a second, staring down at the handful of coins with a disappointed look on his face.

       "Over a matter of 11 Gil?" he finally responded in disbelief.  "Get real, your ladyship."

       "I could have you killed because of that," she threatened, eyebrows arching.

       His patronizing and dismissive snort was cut short when he saw her glowering with a pair of emerald eyes so fierce and intense that he had to look away first.  At the same time, though, he was mildly humored by her attitude and overall bearing, not to mention extremely impressed by her outfit.

       "You don't believe that my father is a local tycoon, do you?" she asked more gently all of the sudden.

       He tossed the empty wallet and the rest of the purse back into her open arms.

       "Like Ifrit he is," he scoffed sardonically.  _Not if your wallet was any indication, cheapskate._

       "No coconut shake costs 11 Gil," she astutely pointed out.

       He pulled out the nicely wrapped chrysanthemum that he had stowed away in his pocket and tossed it into her hands.  She was so startled that she dropped her purse but caught the flower by clapping her palms together.

       "Here," he consoled her with complete and utter apathy.  "This should make up the difference."

       The girl gave him a wry smile when looked down and saw what she was holding.

       He turned and began to walk away.  If he had eyes on the back of his head he might have seen her jaw drop.

       "And now you're just going to walk away?" she shouted before he could get very far.

       "What do you want from me?" it was his turn to ask.  "You have work to do, right?"

       "Besides," he added in afterthought, "I don't even know your name."

       "By my count you owe me about 7 Gil," she replied, ignoring his latter comment, "and I'm not letting you out of my sight until you return it."

       "You're going to have to pry it from my cold, lifeless fingers then," he answered with his back to her still.

       She chased after him in her clumsy high heels.  It was a vigorous run by virtue of the length of her legs or the length of the skirt.

       "Did I _say_ you could walk with me?" he posed gruffly after he sensed that she was right on his heels.

       _It's probably less sugary and sweet than she is used to_, he guessed.

       "Well, you don't have to bark at me," she carped with a frown.

       He closed his eyes and slowed down the pace of his strides so that she could catch up.

       _I should apologize_, he thought, trying to hide a grimace.

       She did not give him the chance.

       "Are you going to the Duke's tournament tomorrow?" she asked.

       "For that ditz?" he answered with a question and then a chuckle.  "Good Shiva no."

       The prostitute scowled.

       "What have you heard about her?" she questioned.

       "Nothing except her name, actually," he admitted, "which is more than I know about you, but I can't imagine her looks would be anything close to Miss Galbadia caliber if her father has to give away half of his province just to marry her off."

       Her reaction was something between a snicker and a growl.

       "The whole deal just doesn't appeal to me," he reaffirmed.

       The flatness of the response she would give puzzled him.

       "Good," was all she said.

       There was an awkward moment of silence.

       "Right," he confirmed clumsily and, sticking his hands in his pockets, continued on his way.

       "What would it take to get you to go?" she checked again, pulling on his sleeve.

       "Thirty Tiamats could not drag me to that tourney," he assured her.

       She lifted both eyebrows and whistled.  _That much?  What luck_.

       "Why?" he asked suddenly, turning to stare at her straight in the eyes.  "Are you going to miss me?"

       _Did that sound enough like I meant it in jest?_ he wondered.

       "I just wanted to know so that I would be better able to avoid you," she parried as rudely as possible.

       He found himself stifling a cough that ought to have been feigned and then scratched his head.  The situation was growing intolerable.

       _I can't deal with this_, he realized finally.  _I've got to get out of here_.

       Having mentally thrown up his hands, the next thing he knew he was running alone in a pasture some number of miles from the city.  She was nowhere within sight, and he could only imagine what she thought of him.

_       It can't be too good_, he presumed.

       He also presumed that there was nothing about the tournament that could possibly interest him enough that he might change his mind about attending.

       He would be wrong on both counts.

       The next day, he found himself being led to the town square by some alien force, despite the weight of thirty Tiamats and the stigma of being a hypocrite hanging over his head.  Going back on his word was making him feel grumpy, so he tried to cheer himself up by entertaining in the idea of free food and a good show.  Once he got there, though, he discovered that his confidence in the abilities of the municipality's social chairman was sorely misplaced.

       He had to say that it was the lousiest food that he had ever eaten.  Having grown up on the streets by foraging, he had had his share low-grade nourishment and knew it well.  In all seriousness, though, he wouldn't feed some of this stuff to a starving stray dog out of compassion for a fellow living animal.  It was no wonder that the county was giving it away for free – the trusting, indigenous population was such an opportune avenue to dispose of the rotting surplus from the previous season and clear the storage warehouses.  It _was_ a wonder that they weren't paying him to eat it.  He mulled over whether or not he would get beaten up if he asked event manager for some Gil to go see a doctor.

       The main spectacle was equally pathetic and gave injury to one's tastes if not to one's stomach.  Even the Duke was growing weary of hiding his boredom.  The chair next to him was empty, either because his third cousin twice-removed President Deling, or his daughter, did not share his waning enthusiasm and was not in attendance.  The only people who seemed genuinely interested in the fight were the three judges sitting at the table next to the Duke.

       How bad the fights were turning out because of the contestants' lack of skill was mortifying to watch.  The number of them that wielded swords were all wobbly-handed, those with spears did not know one end from the other, and the sole contender with the mace did not realize it was too heavy for him.  The only redeeming quality about the tournament was the large turnout of participants.  If he was feeling that queasy from watching them duke it out, it probably meant that the Duke was feeling even worse.  However, he felt that since only one of them deserved to feel that way and he could definitely claim himself to be the victim, he decided that it was time to get going.

       The moment he turned his head away from the fighters' platform he wished he hadn't; dead in front of him were fifty very suspicious-looking fellows with their right hands hidden in the left breast pocket of their jackets as if clasping a small pistol handle.  From the costumes and bruises on ten of the men, he recognized them to be the same ones he had brawled with the day before in the alley.  Now they had brought the whole pack and the entire arsenal, which daunted him because on so open a terrain, even a stoned sniper would eventually get lucky and hit him with that kind of firepower to work with.

       "Sweet Shiva!" he exclaimed and ducked behind a barrel.

       He cursed himself for being so careless.  Coming to a public forum in broad daylight not twenty hours after insulting the local mafia was even more foolish than the decision he made a month ago to hotwire a Galbadian army jeep.  It blew up the second after he jumped out of it.  Now he could only pray that none of them happened to spot him before he dropped out of view.

       "Uncle Biggs!" he heard one of them shout.  "That's him!  The one from yesterday!" 

       "I don't see anyone," the voice he took to be Biggs' answered.

       _If there is a Hyne_, he prayed, _don't let him _-

       "There he is, boss," one of the cronies shouted, "behind the barrel!"

       And based on that one simple test that had just failed, he decided to demote his legal religious denomination from agnostic to atheist the next time he passed by the county registrar's office.  The Great Hyne apparently was not going to lift a finger today.

       He abandoned his hiding place for all the good it had done him and dived into the crowd.

       "Nab him!" he heard Biggs order his men.

       Weaving his way through the crowd, he was still keenly aware of the murmurs of bystanders getting run over by his fifty pursuers.  While the sea of spectators were providing him temporary security, he could see the inevitable outcome of being encircled and overcome.  Standing there looking stupefied was not helping him any, so at last he took to the air, borrowing the shoulders and heads of the unsuspecting onlookers as a bridge over the rest.  He headed towards the center stage where a mad ten-versus-ten affray was taking place.

       "There he goes, boss!" the men shouted over the surprised cries of the masses.

       As he hopped from the last audience member's head onto the stage, he took a deep breath and geared in to try his luck.  From the screams from the crowd, he gathered that the mob had drawn their handguns.

       He had also just stepped in between twenty armed men fighting for the glory of half of the domain to the disgrace of one narrow-sighted lordship.  It would be way too naïve to suppose that they were all fighting for the glory of the girl whose hand was in question, and with idealism becoming démodé and cynicism the latest fad, no one would blame him for thinking so.

       All twenty of them, ten on each side of him, lowered their weapons and gawked at him.

       "Get down!" he shouted at them, anticipating a rain of bullets.  "Get off the stage!"

       It sounded to them like he wanted them all to forfeit to him, and thus they looked at him like he was crazy.

       _Nobody ever listens to me_, he remonstrated grumpily.

       It was too late to explain.  He calculated that the quickest way to knock all twenty of them down was to go for the larger men and have them bowl the smaller fighters over with them.  Without wasting another millisecond of time, he flew at the contenders.  The trick was to take their feet out from under them.  Once they were in the air, they were essentially weightless and any force he applied with his fists would be translated directly parallel to the ground as if he were hitting a leaf.  The skill rested in being quick enough to nail them before they touched the ground.  The moment they landed on their companions, though, they regained all the weight that had been temporarily "lost" and whoever was beneath them would feel the whole package.

       "Sorry," he shouted to each one as they fell off the platform and into the crowd.  _This is for your own good_.

       Within seconds his strategy had allowed him to clear the center arena and scared the audience into backing up three paces from the ring.

       "He's up on stage!" Biggs hollered.  "Bring me his head!"

       The bouncers converged on the platform and clambered onto it, guns still in hand.  The multitude gasped and shrieked at what looked like a bloody shoot-out.  He doubted miserably that there would be enough local bailiffs at the carnival to match even half of the mob's firepower.

       He ruled out hand-to-hand combat as a possible way out of getting gunned down.  Without further hesitation, he bent down, picked up a scimitar that one of the fighters had dropped, and readied himself for a serious batting lesson.

       "I know I've been an atheist for about a minute, but I'm flexible," he muttered under his breath.  _If there is a Hyne-_

       There was no way he could tell how those behind him would fire, so his tactic would be to keep moving and deflect the ones in front of him that he could see and hope they would hit each other with their misses.

       _Boy is Biggs going to be pissed if I walk out of this one_, he told himself much too cheerfully than was prudent at the moment.

       Just as he raised the light sword, he heard the first gun go off from behind him.  He pivoted on reflex.  The next instant was a blur during which he tried to pick out the little black specks amidst all the bright flashes and slice them while continuing to shift his body out of the way of harms he could not stop to enumerate.  He felt like the runt in gym class that everyone wanted to bean for fun, not that he had ever attended school.

       There were screams from the spectators as the guns sounded.  After the first shot, the rest seemed to pour over him, one hardly distinguishable from the next.  There was the sharp reverberance of the sword that hammered his hands whenever it struck metal, but he kept moving.  Soon, the screams of his ambushers joined those of the general public.  Gradually the frequency of the firing dwindled, and when there was but one shooter left of the once ominous firing squad, he was able to grip the handle with ease.  He did not expect the man to put away his weapon and bolt, so when the shot rang out, he slashed and sent the bullet straight back to the source along the same trajectory and with a agonized cry, the battle was finally over.

       In his hand, the originally smooth scimitar blade had been chiseled and dented into one that befitted a saw.  He looked down and saw that the edges of his clothing were so perforated that he could rip it right off of him and into two pieces.

       _Guess it's going to be a bit draftier in the evenings now_, he accepted glumly.

       Biggs the figurehead was the only one in the gang who had not jumped in, and as a result, was the only other person left standing, too stunned to retreat.

       He figured that he should help the stout and now gang-less gang-leader on his way, so he dropped his blade hilt-first and punted it in Bigg's direction.  As the sword whizzed by Bigg's face, missing his ear by a hair's length, it broke his trance and he took off like an Ifrit out of the shower room.

       The throng of spectators erupted in frenzy of applause and adulation, which caught him completely off guard.

       "Identify yourself," one of the judges ordered once the crowd's fervor subsided.

       He stood there looking blankly before turning around to check if there was someone else behind him.  _Are you talking to me?_

       "Give us your name, son," the second judge harried when he did not respond.

       _But I don't have one_, he regretted.

       More miserably he noted, _And I am no one's son_.

       "Something your friends and family call you?" the last judge clarified the definition of 'name' for him condescendingly.

       There were chuckles coming from the crowd, accompanied by the high-pitched squeals of the three senile judges.

       "I have neither friends nor family," he diverted honestly.

       He could not hide the embarrassment that was coloring his face.

       "What do you call yourself then?" the Duke himself asked.  "You must have a name."

       _I can't believe I'm getting humiliated in front of all these people because of some stupid match – Hey!  That sounds good!_

       "Match," he answered without hurriedly.  _Damn!  It sounds so stupid now._

       The Duke of "Shawl's Stone" turned to his second and motioned for him to check the roster on his clipboard.  After flipping back and forth through the same two pages, the second shook his head.

       "You're not registered, young man," the Duke announced.

       "I'm not here to fight, sir," he tried to explain.

       "By stepping into the circle, you've made yourself a contestant," declared the Duke.

       _But I don't even like your daughter_, he thought it best not to say aloud.

       "And it seems you've won, being the last one standing,"  the tycoon continued.

       _Big whoop_, he told himself.

       "Unless there are any more challengers," the elder man added, looking around.

       The audience searched itself for another contender but evidently no one else was feeling lucky that day.  Just when it looked like he was going win by default, a masked character jumped into ring from behind him and raised a dagger to his throat.  He was very chaffed about being held at knifepoint because it was a fairly demeaning position to be in.  However, it was not a hopeless situation to be in.

       'Match' elbowed his assailant, tripped him with the opposite foot at the same time, and ducked beneath the blade as the man toppled over backwards.  After being knocked down, the challenger waved his weapon menacingly, figuring it would keep the other at bay while he struggled to get back up.

       'Match' figured that he could just charge the guy and land a right hook before the blade could get close to him.  Right before his punch connected, though, he spotted the cryo-frozen blossom pinned to the masked man's breast pocket, recognized the petal design unique to the chrysanthemum's crown, and pulled back.  His fist stopped three millimeters from his adversary's face.

       _I've seen that before!_ he realized.

       He pulled the mask off the other person, revealing the face of the girl he had saved in the alley.

       Seeing him almost on top of her, she drew her weapon up reflexively.  The blade sank into his heart, her effort to retract her thrust once she recognized that he had hesitated being too late.

       It was definitely a new experience.  He hadn't quite expected his chest to sound like carrot cake when she cut into it.  Maybe his sensory perception was slightly off because he was being stabbed.

       He shuddered and felt his limbs shake, never having to witness blood gushing out of his own body before.

       She looked even more scared than he felt, wide-eyed and apologetic.

       The crowd froze in a dead hush, and he turned away and ran like the wind.  He hoped his legs would carry him as far as the nearest hospital.

       He must have collapsed and passed out somewhere along the way there because when he regained consciousness, she was sitting beside him with a damp towel in her hand.  The room looked very institutional, as did the blanket and bandages covering him.  The dagger had to have also been removed because he could no longer see its hilt sticking out of his torso.

       _That would be a good thing_, he registered.

       "Thirty Tiamats, eh?" she teased, wiping his forehead but not too busy to rub his hypocrisy in his face.

       He struggled to lift his head but gave up after finding it too difficult a task.

       "For the record, I just want you to know that I came here for the food," he asserted and gave her the finger.

       She made a noise with her throat and then giggled.

       "Even though I support your preferences," he commented, "I don't think the Duke is going to bequeath his daughter to you."

       "I _am_ the Duke's daughter, monkey-brain," she huffed critically.

       "Oh," he replied with a puzzled look.

       After a minute, he whistled and added, "I guess you could play it that way too."

       She rubbed his wound purposefully.

       "Ow!" he cried, cringing under her hand.

       "Now I can choose for myself," she whispered giddily.  _Serves you right for even thinking that_.

       "Now I can die from blood loss," he echoed, not sharing her excitement.

       Her initial scowl after his comment melted into an endearing pout that she complemented with an elbow to his stomach.  It landed close enough to his bandaged wound to sting like a hug from Ifrit.  He coughed in pain.      

       "I still can't believe you stabbed me!" he yelped in disbelief.  _Ingrate!_

       "I'm sorry!" the girl bawled penitently.

       "I could have just stepped down and let you win," he muttered acridly.

       "I said I was sorry," she mumbled.

       "And I can't believe you cryo-froze the flower," remarked 'Match' in afterthought.

       She blushed and lowered her eyes.

       "Well, you gave it to me," she replied with a hint of a smile at the corner of her little lips.

       "I sold it to you," he corrected.  _And turned a profit for myself in the process_.

       Her eyes narrowed nastily in response to his ruining her own magical little moment.

       "So your name is 'Match'?" she asked, changing the subject.

       "Until I grow tired of it, I guess," he answered earnestly.  "And yours?"

       "My name is complicated," she evaded and turned away.  _Do you really want to get involved?_

       "No kidding!" he shouted, glaring at his chest wound.

       She laughed and then, remembering to be serious, reverted back to her guilty frown.

       "Sujie," she finally told him.  _I hope you know what you're getting into_.

       He tried to sit up and tried to sneak in close enough for a kiss.

       "You can't kiss me," she told him and crossed her arms.

       "You meretricious, ungrateful, little wench!" he fumed, incrementing the volume on each successive word.  _It's the least you could do before I die!_

       Undaunted by his candor, she pushed him back down and clarified, "Not until you solve a riddle, that is."

       _Relax, wuss_, her eyes conveyed to him at the same time.  _You're not going to die._

       "What riddle?" he questioned gingerly.

       "Why is the blush of the beach at midnight blue?" she posed quite literally out of nowhere.

       "Yes, I know that one!" he shouted with artificial excitement just as she was finishing her question.  _It's still the afternoon, you psycho.  What about the midnight?_

       "No, really, silly," she replied, giving him a little shove, "I want an answer."

       "Why do you want to know?" he asked in return, lifting an eyebrow.

       "'Cause I just do; I'm a girl," she whined and pulled on his arm.  "Humor me."

       He hesitated, debating whether or not the excuse she had given him would have been valid in a court of law.

       "Pretty please?" Sujie tried.  "Just think about it."

       He gave her the most unconvinced look ever.

       "It's not just any riddle," Sujie explained. "It's mine."

       He clasped his hands together and twirled his thumbs around each other.  _Okay…congratulations, you have now completely weirded me out._

       "I want to know if you really like me," she explicated, sensing his uneasiness.

       _So stabbing me in the heart was a gesture meant to expedite this attraction?_ he pondered with a wry grin.  _Why don't you just nuke me on our anniversary?_

       She glared at him as if she read his last thought.

       He sighed, feeling his conviction slipping away form him.  She was giving him the unconquerable glance and the pout.  Finally and inevitably he shrugged in defeat.

       "So what does it mean once I solve it?" he grudgingly asked.

       "It means I'm yours and you can keep me," she replied so gently that for one moment, all the whisperers in the world grew jealous.

       He had blinked, realizing that he had never before felt so vulnerable, so fragile in his life.  Of course, he had also never been stabbed in the chest in his life.

       He rubbed his eyes and shifted his weight to his other foot.  Keeping the same crouching  position on the roof was becoming rather uncomfortable.

       His head sagged after his next thought.

       After all this, he had let her down.  He had let her die.

       Still peering down at the street in front of the weapons shop, he chided himself.  _I should never have taken that job in the first place_.

       The last professional contract he made was supposed to pay off big time, as in enough to fund his organization for a whole another year.  It seemed like a routine delivery from the Shumi  Village to an undisclosed drop-off point in Deling City with all the terms negotiated through the regular spider web of nameless middlemen.  He should have suspected a trap when the client agreed to the outrageous fee they were charging with minimal bargaining.  

       The package was exactly where the client said it would be and marked with the aforesaid "Rinoa C."  At the time, he simply assumed the agent who would relieve him of the package at the destination point was named Rinoa.  After he had gotten hold of it, he made the run himself to reduce the chances of its interception en route.  If the goods carried that high a price tag, there was sure to be some hurdles in the itinerary, otherwise he would not have been hired to see that it was done in the first place.  That was his company's specialty – sidestepping danger.

       It turned out to be a bad judgment call on his part.  When things seemed too good to be true, they probably were, but the huge profit margin had blinded him from this fact.  He did the first two legs of the route himself and then passed it to Sujie who happened to be the courier at that station.  He tried to talk her out of it, but she was being her regular stubborn yet caring self and did not want him to tire himself out.

       "Besides," she had argued with one her don't-argue-with-me-looks, "I know this Rinoa.  Before I dropped out, we had a class together at the Trinity School for Ladies of Galbadia."

       Whether what she said was true, it allayed his fears enough so that he capitulated, and so she did not elaborate on Rinoa's background.  He wished he had gotten a last name first.  By the time he woke up from the nap she made him take and made it back to Deling City, he found half of his band massacred by the drop site.  She was among the cadavers.  Those who had escaped only managed to lead the assassins back to the den where they met the same execution.  It was either a set-up or the buyer had sold him out to an old enemy with some serious issues.  He suspected Biggs and would have held him responsible for the whole affair if he didn't think Biggs was totally incompetent.

       _No_, Match reasoned and held back his accusation, _Biggs definitely had motive, but he isn't criminal mastermind material.  If anything, he was just another tool on hire._

       He also knew it was useless to try to find the identity of the client and wage his revenge against the bastard and any accomplices because the regular channels were either closed to him or willing to backstab him.  The system had been bought up and his contacts' loyalties converted overnight.  Having lost everything and suspecting that the credits he received were all bugged, he fled the city and the continent as the sole survivor.

       Whoever was operating behind the deal had the proper funds to hire a team professional enough to sack his organization, which meant that they probably noticed that his corpse was not figured into the body count.  So long as he was alive, their assignment was incomplete, meaning that the golden paycheck would be paid to whomever killed him first.  The bounty on his head would draw every mercenary on the continent, not just the jaded team of assassins that had missed him.  Under the circumstances, getting off the continent and relocating himself in Nova Trabia was a good move.  It wasn't easy, though, even for him, Mr. Super-speed, or, as Sujie used to call him, "Mr. Quick-to-ditch," because he had been ambushed on the way out by an automated tactical tank that was scary even to him.  It took his best efforts just to escape from the fight with life and limb.  The Weapon was probably still hot on his trail, looking for him, hunting him.

       Exposing himself to a court full of basketball players, however, was not part of his plan to maintain a low profile in his new niche.  If not for his catching their shouts of "Rinoa," he never would have blown his cover to investigate.  His efforts were in vain, though, because the blonde was not the "Rinoa C." he was seeking; after doing some research on a public computer, he learned that Leonhart's girlfriend's last name was "Heartilly."

       He did not even have the time to rescue her body before he left.  The police had just finished securing the crime scene when he showed up.  He did not even know which morgue the Galbadian medical crew shuffled her and their compatriots' bodies into.  If he went back now, he would probably find her in pieces in some autopsy chamber swarming with forensic experts and aspiring gumshoes.

       For one endowed with superhuman gifts, he felt so powerless.  He would never forgive himself for not taking her away with him.

       To his left, one of the lights in the sky just above the horizon suddenly vanished.  It was the ultra-halogen beacon on top of the Galbadia Communications Tower, designed to keep airplanes from flying into the tower, and visible from the adjacent continents.

       He checked the time on the classy watch that he had pilfered from one of the more affluent gentlemen in the city.  For the past couple of weeks he had noticed with some regularity how the light would disappear late at night for a couple of hours, usually beginning around this time.  Because the beacon was connected directly to the city's nuclear reactor and not through one of the auxiliary branches that served energy to the domestic and industrial sectors, the outage indicated to him that the entire city was suffering from power loss.

       It was a thief's dream, but his time there was over.  He had left Galbadia, its ghosts, and its goons behind him.

       Still, he was curious what sort of abuse of energy use was responsible for the constant electrical shorts over Deling City.  He did not think the military or the President would be foolish enough to repeatedly expose the capital to durations of blackout, during which they would be powerless against a blitzkrieg attack or well-coordinated invasion, literally.  If the Communications Tower was out like the rest of the city, Deling would not be able to radio for help in the event of an emergency.

       The front door of the weapons shop opened.

       From his perch, he spied the unfolding events below with great interest.

       The store manager stepped out first, but instead of closing the door behind him, he held it open for a second man, dressed in black and carrying a long suitcase, to step through.

       _Damn_, he cursed silently.  _Didn't anticipate this_.

       He concentrated hard to catch what they were saying.  The unexpected visitor was a late-night customer who apparently knew the manager really well.  They exchanged a few more words on the sidewalk, shook hands, and then each returned to his own business.

       Their conversation involved a large list of weapons to be shipped to Nova Trabia Garden in two days time for the upperclassmen who had declared their weapon of interest.  He scrutinized the man in black as he headed his way down the street.  From the way he walked, one could guess that he was a loner.  The shape of his ebony suitcase was interesting.  It was long and flat as if it were meant to hold a snowboard.  A single crest of a lion's head adorned the exterior casing.

       He scratched his head and tried to reason out a few things in his head.

       _The man doesn't look like a businessman_, he observed.  _Just look at those jeans!  So why would Garden send him to oversee supplies?_

       The storekeeper locked the door from the outside, put the key back in his pocket, and walked away from the store.  

       He got to his feet and quickly visualized in his head what he had rehearsed a dozen times already and what he was about to do: Back-flip over the edge, push off of the wall with both legs, spiral down to the opposite window ledge on the fifth floor, hop down one more flight, then propel himself over to the pole of the street lamp and slide down the rest of the way.  The door to the shop could be easily removed.  The success of the operation rested on how many weapons he could take off the racks and stuff in his duffel bag in the remaining time before the lights warmed up.  He should be out of the store before anyone had a chance to respond to the alarms that would be triggered the second after the door was taken down.

       It was time.

       It was time to decide what to do about the girl.  He still did not know her name.

       He latched his gun-blade case onto the side of his motorbike and then inserted the key in the ignition.  After getting on, though, he did not take the bike off its prop.  Instead, he just sat there and let the engine run.  There was so much on his mind that it made more sense to slow down and take a minute to go over everything again than to think as he went and risk fumbling it all up.

       She was too precious to make a mistake with.  Roughly a week had passed since he had first met her, and now, having basked in her company for so long, to him she had become more than a delicate face and her anonymity seemed to make less of a difference than he would have imagined.

       To be honest, he was hoping that he would never have to see her again after handing her off to the maintenance man in the garage to deal with.  With the vulnerable state that Nova Trabia Garden was in and their potentially volatile situation with Seifer the wildcard, he figured it in everyone's best interest for the time being not to go looking for distractions.  He had even written a memo to himself about not checking up on her in the coming days while Garden tried to ascertain her origins, and then sent an email to himself as a secondary reminder.

       Yet, despite that very same mindset and the weight of thirty Tiamats, he had leapt off the cliff to save her.  It was as rash an action as his jumping into space had been.  Ifrit had later informed him that that was what courage was made of, but to Squall it seemed more like stupidity.  Even worse, the day after he saved her, he found himself being led to her guest quarters by some alien force, notwithstanding the stigma of being a hypocrite hanging over his head.  Going back on his word was making him feel grumpy, so he tried to cheer himself up by entertaining in the idea of picking up the newest issue of 'Weapons Monthly' on the way and a good forty minutes of leisure before the next class Quistis had lined up for him.  Once he got there, though, he discovered that there was no need for either because he had drastically underestimated the pleasure of her company.

       Her rapid transformation from stranger to saint in the course of the week was not as shocking as it had been to him the first time because he knew how it worked now.  He knew that in a matter of days one could be beholden to someone other than oneself, be it while one was liberating Timber or overseeing the construction of Nova Trabia Garden.  The entire time they were together, she did not utter a single word, but in her silence he felt that he found something more compelling that words could ever express.  There were no lies told between them.  Whether or not there was any truth was a risk that he had decided to take, having very generously given it the benefit of the doubt.

       When he called all his GFs out during his lunch break to ask them for a nice surprise present for her, it had been as unanimous as Cerberus would have been with a splitting headache.  After thirty minutes of deliberation they had narrowed down the choices to the three best by the criterion of being cost-effective, and from there decided the winner by a heads-down vote.

       "You're peeking," protested Minotaur with an accusing finger on the first try.

       "Mind your own business," Bahamut had growled at the bovine midget.

       Squall checked the chrono on his bike's dash and sighed.

       _I'm too late tonight_, he regretted.  _All the pet shops are closed._

       He was very disappointed with how the night had turned out because he had only decided against asking her out on the fourth date of the week that evening and volunteered to fill out the weapons order for Garden that had to be done in person and over the counter because he thought he would have enough time to swing by one of stores and pick up a baby chicobo.  Tonberry had informed them that the word on the street was that one could actually customize the color of their fluff via engineering advances.  Apparently they came with free nametags if you bought them on the weekdays when business was presumably slow.  Tonberry was also up-to-date on all the prices in the global market and could haggle with the store manager for the lowest feasible price.

       "Blue is the new black now, eh?" Doomtrain had jeered him just before he set out for the weapons store.  "I wish I had hair like that."

       "That's enough out of you," Squall had snapped back.  _Besides, we both know you don't have any hair_.

       So far he had been able to avoid running into Quistis while he was with his new infatuation, but she was beginning to suspect that there was someone else monopolizing his time.  He certainly would not lie to her if she came out and asked him what was going on, but he was willing to bet his A09 motorbike that she never would; it was against her nature to be invasively forward, and until she worked up the courage to breach her habit, he would have to put up with her raised eyebrows, curious expressions, and sulky manner.

       He could feel that she was on the verge of asking him what ulterior motive he had for volunteering for lackey's duty of running to town and making the weapons order, but as soon as he stared into her eyes, she looked away, lips quivering, and sat back down.  In a clumsy effort to divert attention away from her sigh, Quistis picked up the bracelet-shaped relic that he had left on the desk and said she was going down to the lab center to run some tests on it.  She'd have it sent to Irvine for him to take down to the library to comb through the books in the hopes of finding a matching illustration. 

       Diablos had recently produced the unidentified, sea-green artifact that he had then brought to the attention of the board.

       _I trust the results will be back by tomorrow afternoon_, he reflected optimistically.

       It was unfortunate that the board found it much more interesting than Seifer's whereabouts in the proximity of Nova Trabia, not because he actually cared about Seifer's rehabilitation's  progress or decay, but because of how badly it reflected on the board's competence.  Irvine nearly dropped the bracelet while twirling it on his finger like a toy.  Selphie wanted to add it to her scanty jewelry collection before she realized that it would never match with the rest of her wardrobe.  Zell, for once, did not have an opinion.

       _Odd but refreshing_, Squall had minded enough to characterize at the time.

       It almost made him forget that the entire Shumi population was ticked off about a recently-discovered theft and jumping down Squall's throat about turning Ambassadors Dincht and Kinneas in to them and letting them carry out their trial and investigation internally.  It seemed particularly important to them that the trial and punishment be performed before the investigation.

       "How badly do they hate you?" Squall fumed at the two after he had seen the Shumi video transmission replay.

       "We swear we didn't take anything!" they squealed synchronously.

       From what Squall remembered of Shumi domestic policy from his old political science classes, they had a skewed sense of death because they would often just reincarnate into Moombas.  As such, their foreign policy and jurisprudence reflected this twisted stringency and the "Guilty until dead and then proven innocent" sophism became the accepted social norm. 

       "Maybe they are still mad about you desecrating their timeless flipper-dipping pan," Irvine whispered to Zell.

       Zell's nostrils flared as he hissed back, "I could just as well blame it on your wastebasket incident with the Nest-Mother's – aaargh!"

       Irvine had just stomped on his foot to keep him from finishing his accusation.

       "Quit it, you two," Squall had interceded.  "This is serious; the Shumi are ready to hang you."

       If _his_ neck hadn't been on the line as well, Irvine would have laughed at the irony of how Zell had been worried the entire time that Cid was going to hang them for bringing down the Artisan's hut.

       As if reading his mind – which she was becoming expert at doing – Quistis threatened vociferously, "Neither of them will get the chance once I'm through with you."

       Irvine got up from his seat next to Quistis and moved to an open one further down the conference table.  She massaged her aching temples while he chose a safer seat and tried to convince herself that the Headmaster's ploy to use the two bumbling SeeDs to distract the Shumi and fool them into paying for the rest of the construction costs had backfired.

       The real kicker was that they, for some reason, had not yet called off their deal to fund Nova Trabia Garden's construction, riled up as they were about the theft of their most sacrosanct heirloom.  Another peculiar aspect of the situation was that the Shumi, in their eccentric need for secrecy, had denied the Garden the knowledge of the description and even the name of what they were contending was stolen.  They did not even have a reliable date for when it had been taken out from them.  Under the sketchy circumstances, Squall found it ludicrous to reprimand his two ambassadors or to help the Shumi recover whatever it was that was too highly classified to have a name or description.

       _Does it even exist? _he wondered scornfully.  _How would we even begin to look for it if we don't know what we are looking for?_

       In the back of his mind, he suspected that Seifer had played some part in causing the distress.  It was the same crafty Seifer whose present location the Nova Trabia Garden intelligence team had been unable to establish and the board of officers had under-prioritized.  If he as a Commander let the situation sit and allowed it to fester more, it was likely to ignite and blow them all to Pandemona.

       _But then again, maybe it will all just blow over_, he considered, indulging in a rare moment of optimism.  That was the problem with him, so he had been told – his saw everything as being so dark.

       _One misplaced Shumi heirloom won't be the end of the world_, he assured himself_._

       He could not have been more wrong on both counts.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	25. Setting 22: 1733 DAY 23, Deling City, Ca...

**Setting 22: 1733 DAY 23, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion B1**

_"Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue."   
  
_

-Don Marquis__

_The Almost Perfect State_

       _W__hat is wrong now, QyQy_!?  Specifically directed information interrogative, agitation, and slight exasperation

       '_Caraway' is breaking out of the trance again_!  Awareness, declaration, alarm, fading confidence

       _We should get him in here for immediate imprinting_!  Hint directive, urgency, and disbelief. 

       _Registered_  Concurrence and acknowledgement

       _Should we also do something about the quadruped entity 'Angelo'_?  Awareness and interrogative

       _I'm sure we can eventually find a better use for him_  Consideration and dismissal

       …  Pause and assent

       …  Discomfiture

       _What else is wrong_?  Awareness, specifically directed, information interrogative directive, and dread

       _FeFe, there is something you should know_  Uncertainty, anxiety, and reluctance

       _What_?  Information interrogative and suspicion

       _Search me_  Specifically directed, self-evident imperative directive and disquiet

       …  Strain, suspicion and curiosity

       …  Internal conflict

       _The Carrier is here_!?  Imputed interrogative, awareness, shock, and disbelief

       _Correction: It has been here for some time_  Smooth check, information declaration

       _Where is it_?  Information interrogative and curiosity

       _The only place on this primitive planet that has enough energy to sustain it_    Complacent declaration and vestigial condescension

       _Won't it be discovered_?  Interrogative and concern

       _The Galbadians haven't found us yet_  Self-evident declaration, dismissal, assurance, and disdain

       _Not the best justification in the universe, QyQy_  Quasi-patronizing declaration, impeding reminder, and dissatisfaction

       _We've brought down entire power-grids and still none of the natives have caught on_  Information declaration, referential reminder, and haughtiness

       _It will only be a matter of time till someone from the power company comes knocking_  Solemn declaration, indirect caution, and hint directive

       _Not likely_  Complacent declaration, haughtiness, and apathy

       _Don't underestimate them, QyQy_  Imperative directive, implied, imputed warning

       _Then don't overestimate their chances, FeFe_  Imperative directive, purposive check, implied, imputed warning, and pugnacity

       …  Hesitancy, doubt, and closer inspection

       …  Indifference

       _Back to the matter at hand, what is the Carrier doing here_?  Awareness, befuddlement, and information interrogative

       _Guess_  Deliberate inattention and absurd suggestion

       …  Distrust, interest, strained patience, and resigned closer inspection

       …  Pause and ambivalence

       _They are looking for PuPu_?  Awareness, surprise, and self-doubt

       _Yes_  Assurance

       _I don't understand why the Clan would send the entire armada to recover one soldier_  Information declaration, non-specifically directed hint directive, and disbelief

       _Think harder_  Imperative directive and latent humor

       …  Pause and closer inspection

       _You're getting closer_  Feigned encouragement and condescension

       _Heavens_!  Awareness and surprise

       _Yes, you're right_  Assurance and smugness

       _Comrade PuPu is a member of the Royal Family_!  Information declaration, exclamation, and disbelief

       _PuPu was the alias of our Prince_  Didactic explanation

       …!  Shock and dread

       _You just realized what will happen to this planet if we can't find PuPu, right_?  Self-evident, rhetorical interrogative

       _Something only the Carrier can perform_  Weak acknowledgment, information declaration, and horror

       _It won't be long before the Clan holds 'Squall' responsible for the missing Prince_  Information declaration and self-assurance

       _Let's hope the 'Archangel' unit will turn up something_  Passive imperative, wishful thinking and worry

       _He doesn't have much time left_  Quasi-critical declaration and impeding reminder

       _Apparently now neither do they_  Self-evident declaration, fading effervescence and jadedness

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

If you didn't catch this in Setting 01, the syntactical structure might seem a bit weird at first glance, because I have a unique method of transcribing what the aliens are communicating.

The "stage directions" after each line they communicates are necessary, and they aren't stage directions; PuPu's alien clan does not communicate with their voices, only their thoughts. They don't have facial expressions either, which means to communicate elements such as sarcasm or emotion, I have to add the "stage directions" and, if you noticed, keep the emotion-denoting punctuation marks (question or exclamation) outside of the brackets.

In actuality, those "stage directions" are called the "pragmatics" of language. The words they actually "speak" are called the "semantics" of language. Because they aren't actually making any sounds with their mouths, I used brackets instead of "quotations" to indicate what they want to communicate with their thoughts. Also, throughout the rest of the story, thoughts are _italicized_ and speech is unmodified. So what the aliens want to communicate show up _like this_.

However, even by including the pragmatics after the semantics, there is still no way I can differentiate for you which alien is which. If they did not greet each other when a third or fourth being waltzed in, or say their respective names in each line, we would have no idea who the addresser and addressee were for any given statement. That is the flaw of indirect narration, I'm afraid, and I will try to find was to rectify it.

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	26. Setting 23: 1810 DAY 23, Esthar Palace C...

**Setting 23: 1810 DAY 23, Esthar Palace Command Center 2F**

_"I have a great belief in the fact that_

_whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking._

_I consider chaos a gift."_

-Clark, Septima Poinsette

_I Dream A World___

       _"C_lose the gap before he gets away!" Kiros shouted.

       He chased the Vysage as it slid out of the command center and into the hall.  The four Estharian guards stationed in the corridor fell upon the Earth-based creature and tried to pound it into rubble before it disappeared back into the ground.

       Kiros was ready to wrap his dreadlocks around his neck and hang himself from one of the posts over the balcony.

       It had been just over a week since he and Ward had last seen the President, and an administrative hell beyond their redemption had since broken loose.  In nearly two decades of service to the President, he had indulged in the popular misconception that the Commander-in-chief's duties were limited to writing off checks and otherwise pushing papers around.  As the aides, his and Ward's clerical skills had degenerated to the grueling responsibility of straightening stacks of paper and stapling others together.  He did not realize that Laguna actually had to go through each of those sheets that comprised the towering heap, organize, edit, and prioritize them.  After eight days of filling in the presidential shoes, Kiros was going blind on paperwork and suffering from a premature version of rheumatism in his writing arm, even though the meds assured him that he had nothing to worry about, being in his thirties.

       As annoying as Loire was to have around, Kiros would have wandered through Centra, trudged across the Kashkabald Desert, and fought his way through Odin's Tower and past the damned Tonberry squad just to rescue Laguna and put him back in his padded presidential seat and give him the presidential pen that they had they had to refill with ink daily.

       Sadly, though, the contact they left at Winhill to watch over Laguna had reported the same thing about his condition each day – that he was still in a coma.  In truth Kiros did not believe Laguna was wily enough to concoct such a scheme and fake them out.  Besides, if Laguna had actually come up with that idea, he would have used it the year he found out that Squall was born.  Instead, he basically gave Ward a vacation from shuffling sheets in the copy room to Balamb.  Kiros was still feeling jilted about that age-old display of favoritism.

       _In my experience_, Kiros recalled gloomily, _whenever Laguna gets hurt, he takes forever to get better, which means I'm going to be here for a while._

       Raine ought to have been better acquainted with those facts than he was.  She nursed Laguna, a complete stranger, for months at her own expense before he finally caught up with the lazy bum and set him straight – either leave the girl or marry her.  It took quite a few walks around the hill before he beat it through Laguna's thick skull that those were the only two honorable options available to him.

       Doing both was not on Kiros' list of recommendations, but then again, Laguna could never do anything right.  If anything, overdoing things was his forte.

       Kiros had actually been pushing for Laguna to just thank her and leave Winhill.  Having suffered enough with Ward to know, he did not honestly want to see another human life dragged down by Laguna, especially when he had his own conscious choices had an influence on the matter.  He was thus not particularly thrilled about his warnings being ignored and having to accompany Laguna to the pawnshop and watch him pawn off everything of value, including the signed photograph he had of Julia Heartilly, just to pay for a set of wedding rings.  Kiros was not aware that the best man's privileges included picking out the ring designs for the bride and groom, but that day Laguna had been very persuasive and convinced him that it was so, that indecisive loafer.

       Kiros stopped in front of the white marker board hanging on the wall directly across from the doorway to the Command Center.  It had been his and Ward's inside joke to keep it there and write down what redeeming qualities Raine could have possibly seen in Laguna that would induce her to marry him whenever one came to mind.

       After eighteen years, the board was still blank.

       Kiros took a rare moment of leisure to scrutinize corner where a brown smudge in the form of a fingerprint rested.

       That little prick whom they had so democratically delegated to be the President of unlimited terms in office without any prior electoral process had been sneaking chocobolates into the office again and eating them in secret so he did not have to share with the rest of them.

       A cry for help interrupted his thoughts.

       "Sir," one of the palace staff alerted him, "Vysages, Elnoyles, and Toromas have infiltrated the palace."

       "And reports are stilling pouring in from the rest of the city, sir," the man behind him added.

       Ever since Esthar had been stricken by a severe and anomalous energy drain a few days ago, intermittent loss of power on each of their power grids had been occurring more and more frequently.  Not only did the municipal cloaking device fail during each of these lapses, but the force-field as well.  Monsters had been able to gain access to the city and were running wild in the unlit streets, terrorizing the incapacitated public and inducing a breakdown in general social services.  The palace technical staff and the capital city's best electricians had been baffled at why the electrical shorts, energy fluxes, and power surges were occurring.

       "If this continues, Kiros," one of the council members had cautioned him at the last assembly, "Esthar can expect anarchy to follow.  Every day more and more neighborhoods are resorting to the formation of local militias and gangs."

       In the face of both domestic and foreign threats, the volatile situation had forced his hand in sending the Royal Guard into the civilian war zone to quell the less serious riots and put down the more serious monsters.  He and Ward had put a hold on declaring a state of martial law until they had Laguna's input, which was for the time being unavailable.

       Now faced with multiple appeals for assistance, Presidential Aide Kiros Seagul reached for emergency intercom speaker and tried to get a hold of Ward.  After his announcement, he radioed in for a reserve squadron of the Estharian army, stretched as it was, to secure whatever district was screaming its head off the loudest at that time for government aid yet again.

       He then ran down the stairs in the direction of Dr. Odine's laboratory.  He had great faith in the good doctor's abilities to figure out the cause of the problem and find a solution.  He also felt, after looking over the past week's electricity bill, that it was rather fishy that the lab was the only place in the palace that had been able to run on an uninterrupted, regulated supply of energy through their crisis.

       Kiros found Odine scrambling in and out of his private laboratory as if he were busier than everyone else in the palace.  This saved him the trouble of having to barge in on the doctor with the golden all-pass code that Laguna had furnished his presidential aides.

       "Vat?" the oddity of a scientist asked when he detected Kiros' presence.

       Kiros smirked, remembering the forty-minute discussion the board digressed into about paying for a voice modulator to countervail Odine's cacophonous accent.  In the end, it was decided that the only way they would possibly prioritize it high enough to put it on the budget plan would be to hide some other project they spent the Gil on from the public eye upon its publication.

       "I know vat you are sinking, Kivos," Odine cut into his argument pre-emptively, "and you should sink again.  It iz not Odine who iz mezzing vit ze powa."

       "Can you find out what is causing it then?" Kiros beseeched him.  _You took the words right out of my mouth, you old fart._

Odine grabbed a box overflowing with manila folders and loose pages and dropped it just outside his door in the hallway.

       "It iz too elementary for one such az myself to deal vith," he huffed.  "Send a first-year electrical engineer, vhy don't you?"

       With that derogatory recommendation, he gave Kiros the finger and disappeared back into his lab, taking care to shut the door after him so Kiros would not follow.

       Kiros cracked his knuckles but restrained himself.  One day, when Odine had gone senile and the board could no longer justify why it was better to keep him around, he was going to enjoy seeing the doctor off.

       Kiros bent down to examine the contents of the box that Odine had deposited at his feet for the janitor to take to incinerator.  It was a mélange of ancient files and reports, mostly about Ellone which Adel had commissioned him to write up.  That also meant that they were now all obsolete.

       Kiros shook his head in disappointment and threw down the dusty folders he had been thumbing through.  He had not seen Ellone for three weeks.  The captain of the Estharian cruiser they sent to Winhill had reported that there were no passengers at the stop.  He and Ward had gone back to Winhill to rendezvous with Laguna and do some further investigating, but his condition and Esthar's own emergencies had cut their mission short and utterly incomplete.

How many times had he gazed out the port window at the _Gotterdammerung_, _Fimbulvetr_, _Jormungand_, and _Naglfar_?  The four continually upgraded, red-splattered sister ships of the antiquated _Ragnarok_ languished lugubriously at their launch towers, clutching onto the structural spires as if they hadn't the energy to support themselves.

       Kiros shook his head.  The national power outage suspended the search for Ellone and any escorts to pick Laguna up indefinitely.  Without operational communications, Ward had had no luck contacting the White SeeD ship to inform them that Ellone was missing, possibly because the White SeeDs did not want to be found, or probably because Ellone was with them, but most definitely because Ward couldn't even turn on the ether-radio console.

       Kiros had a soft spot for that girl that he could proudly admit.  Most of the country did too, being all too familiar with Sorceress Adel's ruthless programs to hunt down Ellone before Laguna took office.  She had only been a child then.

       _Not that she isn't a child now_, Kiros reconsidered, thinking about Laguna's eternal kid-niece.

       He could not decide if her complete retainment of the spirit of youth and her childish excesses was a precious thing or a pernicious one.

       "I just hope she is okay," Kiros murmured.

       Portentously the lights in the corridor flickered and died, as if to answer him in the negative.  That was a pity because if they had remained lit, he might have had second thoughts about dismissing the entire box so quickly and the titles of three individual folders – "Loire Abortion," "11th Success," and "Crystallization of Great Salt Lake" – might have caught his attention.  Sadly, no human eyes would ever set upon those documents again.


	27. Setting 24: 1812 DAY 23, Deling City, Ca...

**Setting 24: 1812 DAY 23, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion 2F (Master Bedroom)**

_"Everyone has a talent; what is rare is the courage_

_to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads."_

-Jong, Erica

_The Craft of Poetry_

       _R_inoa opened her eyes and then double-checked to see if she had.

       She had, which meant if she still could not see anything, then someone had turned off the lights while she was snoozing.  She made a mental note to fire and kill that certain someone, and not necessarily in that order.

       Rinoa sat up and swung her legs over where she guessed the side of the bed was.  Before hopping to her feet, though, she huffed prissily.  It was the acme of skill that one could only master through years of stringent training in the ways of dignified, traditional, upper-class propriety.  It was also extremely outdated, but at that moment, all alone in the dark, she felt like being silly.

       _He hasn't called me all this time_, she lamented suddenly.  She punched her pillow in a fit of helplessness.

       She might have known that not calling was one of his talents.

       _And generically they have so few in the first place_, she sulked.

       It was written clearly in their job description right next to piss her off and make her cry.  Either that or it was in their genetic code, universal to their gender.

       "Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered crossly, pretty sure that she was scolding him at the beginning but worried towards the end that she might be referring to herself.

       _Why does every guy I fall for make me feel this awful?_ Rinoa grieved.  _All two of them._

       The certainty that neither guy ever kicked himself when she didn't call him seemed extremely unfair and was eating away at her self-esteem.  She considered getting him a cell phone just so she could convince herself that being able to talk to him wherever he went and whenever she wanted to was the same thing as being right there beside him all the time.

       And yet, through it all, the General had assured her that his negotiations with the Estharian President were being drafted and notarized.  By Galbadian law, the procedures to acquire a legal betrothal license was surprisingly more complicated than getting one for either divorce or marriage.  Rinoa had expressed her desire to be present during one of the electronic negotiations but the General had insisted that that would not be possible.

       _E-marriages…the latest fad_, she ran a mock advertisement in her head dryly._  Welcome to the future._

       She frowned, remembering how he had sent her back to the master bedroom right after she asked.  She was really getting accustomed to being locked inside all day.  She had spared no energy familiarizing herself with every aspect of her cell.

       Rinoa looked around the darkened room, mentally inserting where each piece of furniture should be.  During the day, when she was bored, which was most of the time, she would close her eyes and navigate through the room for hours and never forget where she was.  Once the sun had set, she could do it all over again with her eyes open and it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference.

       _What a clever way to double the fun!_ she cheered herself on.

       Maybe it was her father's way of trying to hold on before he had to let her go for good.  He was never this protective of her, not even after her mother died.  Uncle Zen had taken up the slack and took charge of leading her through her emotional growth, which in retrospect might not have been the most desirable thing because of his habit of ruffling the social norms.  If she was the beneficiary of her father's bluntness, then she was the heiress to her uncle's sarcasm.

       So it all made sense why she was being treated like a child again right before her legal promotion to woman status.  The General was acting weird lately because of a natural defense mechanism.  He would miss being a father, even if she never acted like she was his daughter.

       Rinoa might have felt sorry for him if she did not resent the fact that she was still grounded so much.  Maybe he was grounding her now because he would miss being able to ground her at all later.  She could not make any calls out of the house, she was restricted to this room and the kitchen, and she was not allowed to see Angelo.

       She pouted when the last thought came to mind.  _My poor honey baby is all alone without his mommy!_

       The General had gone back on his word; he never did let her baby into the mansion, and she knew this because Angelo had continued to bark from day-in to day-out.  She was actually surprised that he wasn't barking his head off right at that minute.

       Rinoa wondered if anyone had been feeding him over the past week.  She knew that the only reason why she was allowed to go into the kitchen was because their butlers could not cook worth chocobo fodder and she would have starved to death if she didn't fix herself some sustaining sandwiches.  She always ate by herself too.

       _Probably because military men are too proud to eat_, she theorized.

       Rinoa sighed, still unable to shake off the feeling of enslavement that the term 'grounded' had inflicted upon her.

       _He is so mean!_ she raged.  She threw a pillow to where she estimated the door was and imagined her father's face on the door in a dartboard-type arrangement.

       The General had actually gone as far as to cut all the phone lines in the house except those in the communication room, which he hogged whenever he hadn't disappeared to somewhere else.  He had also stationed guards outside his bureau room in case she tried to use the exit to the sewers behind the cabinet as Quistis, Zell, and Selphie had done.

       _All this just to make a me taking this grounding seriously_, Rinoa scoffed, trying to convince herself that she still hated him or that she ever really hated him at all.

       _Whatever_, she concluded her thoughts and got to her feet.  The next few minutes she spent skipping around in the darkness and entertaining herself with following the paths of circles and figure-eights without running into anything.  In the process, she quickly became acquainted with the creaking noises that each of steps made against the old wooden floor tiles under the rug.  There was one spot seven paces from the door and three more from there towards the window that sounded different from the rest, which, in her present state of abysmal boredom, merited her undivided attention.

       She rushed to the desk lamp and tried to switch it on.  When she failed, she tried the room lights.  That attempt frustrated as well, she resorted to the battery-powered flashlight sitting in the middle drawer of the desk.  After her pupils had properly constricted to operate in the new level of illumination, she ran back to the curious spot, kicked away the rug, and knocked on the tile with her fist.  It sounded hollow underneath and felt loose.  Her nails provided excellent leverage so she was able to pry away the board with little problem.  Upon removing it, she discovered a small compartment with a little book tucked inside it.  Further inspection revealed that it was the diary of Julia Heartilly.

       Faced with such an irresistible temptation to open it and delve into her mother's every secret, Rinoa did was every responsible daughter would have done in that same situation.  She plopped onto the bed, wiggled into a comfortable position, and flipped open the cover to the first page.

       It was a meticulously-kept daily journal that clued her in by the twentieth page on how interesting her mother had been.  She regretted that she had to get it from a book instead of hearing it from her father or from actually getting to know her mother.

       She found some old sketches, a discolored picture of Laguna, Kiros, and Ward in Galbadian military uniform, and scribbles of lyrics to songs she had never heard of.  There were also multiple drafts of lyrics and notes to her hit single "Eyes On Me."

       Rinoa shook her head critically after skimming through her mother's edited versions of the song.

       _Mother, mother_, she chided, _you really should have learned how to conjugate your verbs before you released this one, or at least consulted an Anglophone editor._

       Rinoa blinked in a jarring moment of realization.

       It was the realization that she would soon be having a realization.  Rinoa scowled and thought hard to try to figure out why the diary was so important.

       The standalone grandfather clock was ticking in a manner that made her feel stupid.

       _So I'm about to make a realization_, she encouraged herself, but could not for the life of her convert her blank stare to an enlightened one.

       _What am I realizing_? Rinoa wondered desperately.

       It seemed like she had been ruminating for forever.  Forever being four minutes and twenty seconds.  It was the most protracted realization she had ever had.  And the clock was really starting to get on her nerves.

       _You can do it, Rinoa_, she supported herself.  She relaxed her clenched fists and pushed any desire to wrench the clock's pendulum out of the compartment and break it in half over her knee out of her thoughts.  _Just focus.  You're so close to making a realization._

       And then, it hit her.

       She was holding in her hands all the evidence Uncle Zen would need to prove to the Wong lady that her mother was not a plagiarist.

_       This is the missing diary that they never found! _Rinoa finally realized, kicking her feet so excitedly that the bed frame rattled.  The angels sprang out from the clouds with their starry trumpets and burst into song.

       Her feet slowed to a rest with her second realization – that her mother had chosen the hidden compartment as a safe to lock away her past because it contained a secret so awful that she would not produce the book to save her fortune and name.

       Rinoa scowled, remembering how Zen had told her about the mystery behind the purpose of the trust fund and the identities of the ten trustees.

       _Why would she leave it all to them and not to me?_ she wanted to scream.  _And why didn't she want anyone to find this diary?_

       She probably would have done so if she thought it would have made a difference and if her eyes didn't catch something scrawled along the side margins of the page to which her baby picture was pasted.  Julia had written "now a girl" with a smiley-face emoticon.

       At least that was what Rinoa thought had been scribbled there.  She searched for a better explanation or some context and even tried to reread it, but stopped straining her eyes when she noticed that it was becoming harder to read not because it was illegible, but because the flashlight's bulb was dimming.  The damned contraption was running out of batteries.

       _To Diablos with it_, she cursed.  _I'm willing to bet my wedding dress that they're Galbadian brand batteries._  _How like my father to take advantage of the military's warehouse surplus when everyone knows the only reliable power sources are from Esthar._

       She shook her head and hopped back onto her feet.  There was no way that she was going to wait until the sun came back up to comb through the rest of the book.  She wanted some answers.

       There was nothing left to do but check the circuit breakers in the basement to see if they were fried and reset them if they weren't.

       Rinoa carefully replaced the diary where she had found it and covered it back up.  Then, enshrouded in darkness, she primped herself before trying her luck with the door handle.  Once again, the General had neglected to lock it.

       "Some grounding experience," she sneered under her breath.

       Rinoa opened the door a crack and peeked outside.  The snoring of the guards on either side of the door was not hard to miss.

       _No surprise there_, she told herself.  _After all, that's what they get paid to do – sleep while standing upright, like the birds do._

       She giggled and boldly stepped into the hallway.

       _With the lights out, they probably wouldn't be able to see me even if they were awake_, she reasoned.  _Unless, of course, he furnished them with night-vision goggles_.

       That was what Rinoa liked best about the military's warehouse surplus.  It always managed to slip into domestic use.  But she had nothing to worry about from the two snoozing security personnel.  The coast was clear.

       "Now," she joked, "let's find out what's hiding in the basement."

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	28. Setting 25: 1813 DAY 23, Directly under ...

Setting 25: 1813 DAY 23, Directly under Nova Trabia Garden 

_"Now go; a single will fills both of us:_

_You are my guide, my governor, my master."_

-Alighieri, Dante

_Inferno II_

       _"I_ know that is where they hide it," Seifer asserted for the fifth time.

       "Are you certain about that?" Titanus grumbled yet again.

       "What do you care?" Seifer finally snapped.

       "I don't," the Guardian Force replied evenly and made some lewd motions below his waist with his free hand to spite his master.

       "Who is 'they'"?  Raijin asked, trailing four lines behind in the conversation.

       "We're almost there," Seifer repeated, purposely ignoring him.

       In an unusual moment of joy, he picked Fuujin up and hugged her.  He did not have the opportunity like Raijin behind them to see her look of amazement.  Returning to his normal aplomb, he set her down and turned to face his two speechless spectators.

       "Get to work" he ordered, pointing at Raijin but eyeing Titanus.

       "And what is 'it'?" Raijin wanted to know, the gears in his head still turning to decipher Seifer's initial sentence.

       "'It' is what they've been hiding and what we've been mucking around this grungy tunnel to steal, nimrod," Seifer vented.

       "But what is 'it'?" squawked a still more curious Raijin.

       Fuujin rolled her eyes.

       As if in response, Seifer cracked his knuckles menacingly.  His usual white gloves were not on the dirtied fists to dull the sound, which reverberated off the walls of the tunnel and sped down its length.

       Raijin got the message and dropped whatever mental heroism he had been endeavoring.  He had decided for the time being to feel confident that whatever 'it' was that Seifer had planned to steal was something dandy.

       Through the shade of the GF's visor Seifer could make out Titanus' incredulous scowl.  Seifer followed the other's gaze over to Raijin's goofy but determined expression as he heartily banged away at the rock.  If he was reading Titanus' expression right, the GF seemed to be grieving about being indentured to Seifer's posse out of all the pathetic humans to whom Ultimecia could have conferred him.

       The Guardian Force's eyes narrowed in anger.  After all, he had won that bout against Seifer in her presence.  _What more did she want me to prove?_

       Witches were notorious for going back on their word.  Any pledges she had made to him about setting him free were all certain to prove spurious at some time or another.  He just hadn't remonstrated enough to her face about being suckered into helping this classy rabble led by the most petulant knight he had ever seen, always piping, "My dream, my dream."

       My _dream_, Titanus cogitated sourly,_ is for him to shut up and finally give me a decent night's sleep_.

       The Guardian Force turned from the section of the wall he had been working on and met Seifer's knowing scowl.

       "Not much gets by you, I take it?" Titanus muttered with so much gusto of condescension that even Fuujin slowed her rock-picking pace by a notch.

       "I don't miss a thing," Seifer boasted.

       It was difficult to determine whether he was sneering or smirking when he said that.

       "Hey," Raijin lifting his head giddily, having finally found his golden moment to participate in what seemed like an exciting discussion, "what about that time you screwed up the answer for the level 16 SeeD Exa-Oww!"

       Because Fuujin had been awkwardly in the way between them, Seifer was a bit slow to get around and sock Raijin, a lag time that cost him the six more words than anyone needed to hear, but which, once spoken, would spawn unnecessary embarrassment at his expense.

       Seifer shook his head and grumbled something about it being his luck to be marooned in a subterranean grotto with a pair of retards.  Raijin just assumed that he was referring to the GF and Fuujin.

       "You're the retard," Titanus snickered just soft enough so that neither Fuujin nor Raijin could hear, but just loud enough so that Seifer would have no problem making it out.

Seifer's grip tightened around the handle of his chisel.

       "You're the retard," he repeated.

       The voice in all its harshness sounded eerily familiar.  It also sounded particularly hollow to him, but was he getting feeling hollow inside and confusing his senses?

_       Was it even directed at me?_ Seifer wondered.  _No, right?_

       It was a shrill voice, belonging to a girl but in his opinion rather unbecoming of one.

       "You're the retard," she said once more and rudely placed a hand on Yumey's shoulder to begin the motion for a shove.  Moving too slow to catch Cary Kay's hand, Seifer resolved instead to catch Yumey from behind as she fell backwards.  If they hadn't been sisters, he would have broken her offending little wrist.

       Seifer scowled, visualizing the signature white t-shirt, torn jeans, and red socks of a not quite forgettable former acquaintance.  He was sure that even if he hadn't been standing next to the girl in broad daylight to verify it, he would still have been able to imagine some tacky statement knitted on her sleeve.  "Bite Me" was the most promising contender.  Seifer took a second to glance at her shirt anyway.  That day, it was indeed.

       Seifer shuddered involuntarily.

       _Aren't women supposed to have a sixth sense for fashion?_ he cogitated bitterly.

       Cary Kay was the exception that proved the rule.  He considered how she probably hated him enough to dress badly and spite him.

"You do know that he is just visiting for the summer, don't you?" Cary Kay carped to her sister critically.  "He's one of those military types."

       Seifer moved forward to wrench the crow's tongue out, but Yumey, feeling Seifer's body tense from behind her, held him back.  In reply she nodded meekly.

       "Where is your sense of self-worth, Yumey?" Cary Kay shouted, waving her arms over her head for emphasis.

       The extra display seemed pretty unnecessary to him.

_       Overall she is quite annoying_, he noted for the four hundred and twenty-fourth time.

       Yumey shrugged and leaned closer into Seifer's indexically protective breathing space.  She wasn't smiling.

       "Can't you see that you're just a fling of his?" the virago continued to disparage them.  "You're this season's second serving of dessert."

       Yumey crossed her arms and then hugged herself tightly, and meekly.

       "You are so being used, Yumey," her sister sneered contemptuously, "but I guess you're okay with that."

       It was a caustic addition, and Seifer could see his companion wilt under its weight.

       Cary Kay herself was fuming.  Unsure of how effective her grilling was at getting the point across to her sister, she stuck her hands in her pockets and paced back and forth.  Yumey bit her bottom lip sullenly and tried to decide if she should press her luck.

       "Can you please keep this a secret from dad?" Yumey begged.

       "You are so infuriatingly weak-willed!" Cary Kay erupted and threw up her hands once again.  "I can't believe that you and I are related."

       She gave one final glare in Seifer's direction and then stormed off. 

       Yumey tried to stay her sister, but Seifer sternly intervened.  Sighing, she turned towards him and placed her arms around his neck.

       "Do you think she'll tell anyone?" she asked worriedly.

       Seifer wondered, _So what if she does?_ but instead quietly drew her in closer and lent her his shoulder to rest her head on.

       "No," he assured her, "she probably won't."

       Yumey buried her face in his arm and sobbed softly.  Seifer rested his cheek on her head and stroked her head tenderly.

       "Hey," he said, suddenly breaking away from the embrace, "come with me."

       She grabbed onto his hand as he turned and asked, "Where are we going?"

       "It's a surprise," he replied and shot her one of his trademarked winning grins.

       She squinted curiously but smiled.  At the time he had figured that she just liked being led around.  In retrospect, she might have only followed him around because she couldn't bear the thought of losing him.

       Still holding her hand, Seifer headed towards the lot.  She skittered along behind him, having to give two strides to match each one of his.  He stopped in front of a gaudy blue motorbike.

Yumey was finally able to catch up and overtake him, but he pulled her back.  She tucked her long hair back behind her ear and gave him a questioning look.

       "This is it," he said, pointing at the vehicle.

       She blinked and then did a double-take.  It didn't quite register how a teenager like Seifer could have afforded the only newly market-released A08-series jet propulsion Garden motorbike.  One would like to think that the standing government or motor authority would at least require a license for any vehicle that carried around self-guiding missiles in its side compartments.

       "You didn't kill anyone for this, did you?" she asked, tugging on his arm agitatedly.  _Maybe he has a wealthy benefactor's patronage._

       He raised an eyebrow and swung his right leg over the seat.

       She scowled when he chose to motion for her to mount instead of answering her question.

       When it was obvious that she wasn't going to budge until she was satisfied, he did his best to confess penitently, "I might have maimed him, but I certainly didn't kill him."

       His acting was overdone.  She took it as a joke and gave him a quick peck on the cheek for trying to be cute.

       "How should I sit; with one leg on each side or both together on one side?" she asked him.

       "Does it really matter?"  Seifer asked, distinctly disinterested.

       He sighed when he saw from her subsequent expression that it did matter.

       "You choose," he amended and waited for her to climb on. 

       "I'm wearing a skirt, Seifer," she reminded him in a serious tone.

       "Take it off if it bothers you," he suggested dryly.

       She smacked his white-cloaked shoulder and told him that she'd rather discard him instead.

       In response, Seifer frostily shook her hand off and started the engine as if he was going to leave without her.  It had the intended effect.

       Yumey cried out and held onto him so that he wouldn't go.  Without further indecision, she clambered onto the backseat and modestly swung both legs to one side.

       Seifer took off his glove and unlocked the glove box with a fingerprint scan.  Reaching into the compartment he pulled out two helmets and handed one with an opaque visor to her.

       It didn't take her too long after she put it on to figure out that it reduced her visibility to zero.  She nudged Seifer and told him the problem.

       "I told you where we're going is a surprise, didn't I?" Seifer explained.

       Yumey didn't say anything.

       Seifer shut off the engine and turned around in his seat.

       "You have a choice between putting this bucket over your head over blindfolding yourself with this Ribbon band," he told her, reaching into his pocket and producing the said lace.  He held both items out to her and waited.

       She searched his eyes for a brief moment before tentatively reaching for the blindfold.

       Seifer shrugged and put the clumsy headgear away. 

       "Do you trust me?" he asked her with a suddenly serious expression.

       "Yes," she replied with a brave smile.

       "No, really," he checked before repeating to her, "do you trust me?"

       "Yes," she said again after she had put in a little more thought.

       Seifer nodded in satisfaction and turned back around.

       "Then hold on tight-" he instructed her but was cut off by her two-fisted iron clamp under his diaphragm.  It was one gripping experience.

       The feeling only intensified during the thrill ride.  Her small frame was duplicitous; blind to her environs, Yumey was also blind to the fact that he was on the verge of blacking out because of her clinch.

       He was beginning to see spots just as the front wheel bit into the first patch of sandy turf, a harbinger of the flood of the golden shoreline that would soon hog the horizon.  He slowed to a gentle stop and exhaled in relief as her embrace finally slackened.  It would have been unfortunate had he needed to violently knock her off the seat as a self-preservatory measure.

       "Where are we?" she asked, tugging on his elbow.

       "If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?" he retorted.

       Careful not to jostle her, he dismounted and bid her follow.

       "Can I take the blindfold off now?" she begged.

       "In a minute," Seifer told her.  "For now, just give me your hand."

       "Why can't I just give you this Ribbon band back?" she fussed.  As she did this, she put her naturally placed her hands on her hips, but the slight sway from the bike in reaction to her movement threw her off balance.  She teetered to the brink of falling, but Seifer caught her just as she cried out.

       The next instant was just startling for her.  The blacked-out world managed to somehow turn upside down.  She guessed that he had hoisted her up over his shoulder and was carrying her as he walked.  Inverted, her sandals fell off of her feet.

       "Wait," she cried, "my sandals!"

       "It's okay," he consoled, "you won't need them where we're going."

       She conceded and let him bear her like a duffel bag for ten more steps before speaking up again.

       "Should I be scared?" she asked.

       "Are you?" he answered with his own question.

       She didn't make a reply but from how tense her body was, he gathered that she wasn't very comfortable with manhandled as if she were freight.  He stopped and let her down.

       Her feet plopped down onto a giving surface.  She gasped in surprise and ran her toes through the even sand.

       "Where are we?" she asked again, still unable to guess.

       Seifer took her hand and led her slowly forward.  After a twenty more paces, he had positioned her perfectly to view the sparkling water just as the edges of the sun dipped beneath the horizon, eager to test the pool before fully submerging.  It would bob there for a moment like orange flotsam as he undid the blindfold.

       Once unveiled to her, she would say something more romantic than, "I can't see anything until my pupils are still adjusting to the light," and anticlimactically miss the magic.  He would not forgive her in ten lifetimes if she was that deft at ruining this moment.

       She gasped and grabbed his arm to steady herself, as if the power of the sight were so captivating as to enervate her from standing upright.

       Nothing else.

       And then, "Why?" she asked in a low monotone, her face suddenly falling into a shady gloom.  There was more than a modicum of suspicion and none of curiosity.

       Seifer optimistically ascribed the precipitous darkening of her countenance to the turning of her cheek away from the drowning sun.  He wanted to answer that it was because she was worth it, but something about her expression suppressed the desire.  He stiffened.

       When she realized that he couldn't speak, she went on, "I haven't known you for that long."

       Seifer felt like he had been run over by a semi-truck.  _This is her sister's influence!_

       "Put yourself in my shoes," Yumey posed, trying to be cautious.

       "Well," Seifer countered with an unexpected flare of testiness, "no one has ever done this for me, and I've never done this for anyone else, so there is no way I can put myself in your shoes."

_       You have baby feet anyway_, he thought to himself.  He could feel his jaw tightening.

       "I wanted this to be all fun and games, but now it is turning serious," she explained herself hesitantly.  Maybe she assumed all of this would be clear to him.

       "What's the matter?" Seifer asked.  "Why can't you just trust that something good is happening to you?"

       "It's hard for me to trust people as much as you're asking me to trust you," she clarified, swallowing hard.

       His facial features must have looked ironclad by that point.

       "So this is about other people in the past?" he inferred.  His face bore an indignant flush because she had chosen to associate him with a most unprepossessing crowd.  For an instant he felt just as despicable as they had to have been.

       "You don't know anything about my past," she objected icily.

       The arching of the eyebrows betrayed the multitude of pejorative emotions he was wrestling with internally.  As if on cue, Yumey grew patently uncomfortable.

       "Do you understand what I mean?" she cut in.

       Nothing.

_       She is being so cold_, he judged.  His gift to her had been his openness, a brutal exposure of  both his position and his pride.  It had proved to be a costly mistake.  The vulnerable part of his heart closed up and was pad-locked for the span of posterity where it would take the entire girth of time to heal itself of the indelible pain.

       Nothing.

       And then, there was an inaudible yet blistering snap.

       Seifer retorted as crassly as it was deliberate, "The only thing I understand is that you're putting me in the shallow end of the pool because of all the shallow people that got to dip in it before me."

       "I don't want to talk about it now because we'll end up fighting," she concluded.

       "I wouldn't get in a fight with you," he remonstrated, not wanting to close the subject just yet.  "The worst thing that could happen is I give up."

       It was a coin toss whether or not she would interpret that as a threat.  He was hoping that it would sting at least a little bit.  It was the first attempt to actively hurt her.

       She bit her bottom lip silently, sullenly.

_       Maybe even ashamedly_, he could just about detect.

       "The day I give up," Seifer then found the courage to add, "I'll ask the one question about your past that I haven't yet asked."

       "Why do you have to be that way?" Yumey chided.

       "Do you want me to say it now?" he changed around.

       A score of meek waves scuttled by in tense anticipation of her answer.

       "No," was her hollow murmur of a reply at length.

       "Then I won't say anything," he finished, zealously over-agreeable.  His hands plunged deep into his pockets as he prepared to walk back his bike.

       "What _will _you say then?" she solicited quickly, not making too expert an effort to hide the fact that she was trying to stay him.

       He turned on his heel and hissed, "Nothing now except what a great joy it is for me to have to rebuild a bridge that others have crossed before me and burnt down behind them."

       She was visibly taken back, but he could see that she knew it to be true.  There was no protest from the receiving end, which let him know that she was probably feeling it.

       Liking this, he took another stab at irritating the fresh wound, "_You_ see all the angles so well.  Tell me your assessment."

       Unstated but unneeded to be was the extra clause, _If you were that excellent a judge of character, you wouldn't be this pathetic and ungrateful_.

       He did not know whether he was being insensitive or too sensitive.  He no longer had any compunction about the savagery because he felt it was justified.  It was her turn to face the firing squad and be knocked senseless as he had been minutes before when she turned on him.

       "You've betrayed me in the only way one can be betrayed," he muttered with a sinister edge in his voice.

       The feeble addressee had meanwhile shrunken back in fear, as if the feeling of being spurned were something familiar to her.  The same retractive movement he had often observed in creatures that, not knowing any better, had been burnt.

       "Don't worry," he voiced with bad intentions, "in a few weeks, I'll be out of your life forever."  He was of course referring to the imminent terminus of the summer.

       "That's not funny," she said softly.

       "Now seemed like a pretty good time to give me a chance if ever, because now is the only time we'll ever have together," he rationalized, incorporating a few specious assumptions that he hoped she would miss.

       Finding her still passively inert and unresponsive, he repeated, half demandingly, half tragically, "Now is our eternity."

       He was not a fortune cookie.  At least Seifer didn't think he was.  He couldn't predict the future any more than he could tell what she had been through or what she was thinking.  But he could just about tell her unequivocally how much he disdained for condemning his present and their future because of her past.  He held her in contempt.

       Nothing.

       Still nothing.

       She hadn't spoken a word.

       It occurred to him that he wanted a commitment that she was neither sure about nor prepared to give.  He had wanted to tell her as frostily as possible, "I can bury my pride, give you my soul, and allow you to cow my spirit, but now you've broken my heart, and so overstepped the bounds that I was prepared to endure," but he kept it to himself in order to uphold a more stoic image.  The best recourse then was to just drive her home, or, if he really couldn't stand her anymore, just dump her on the boardwalk.

       Seifer breathed deeply and noted bitterly that all the fuss had cost him most of the sunset.  The last lingering traces of light were fading into oblivion, and had the gaze lasted a minute longer, he would not even have been able to see the pink shades smolder into lavender as it was changing now.

       The wind had picked up slightly since he last made note of it, perhaps three minutes ago.  Sheets of waves were now racing across the ocean surface like peels of apple skin sheered by an invisible knife.  Wisps of wind tugged perseveringly at his hair, and he wondered briefly how exhilarating it would feel to accept their invitation and run right in.

       The waves were still crashing behind her, the ocean surface gleaming as it churned under the sun's fading corona.

_       Was that the last I saw of her?_ he asked himself.

       Seifer wiped off the sweat that had accumulated around his brow during his protracted flashback, throughout which he had been frowning.

       _Probably_, he concluded after another second of rumination.  _No, wait…_

       Three weeks following the escapade, he had returned to Garden for training and did not have the occasion to return to Galbadia to check up on Yumey until the following summer under the guise of Rinoa's callboy.  It was an exhaustive set-up, but he badly needed information about his father that only General Caraway had access to.  To get into the General's mansion, the spoiled Timber Owl runt was indispensable, but in his heart, not invaluable.

       At the end of the summer, Seifer found himself doubly disappointed by his findings.  First, Yumey had gone missing since he left the previous summer, and second, the paper trail from Caraway's old files had led him to a dead end.  What was worse, he had to deal with an ancient nemesis whom he had clearly not forgotten about long enough to miss.  It was one of life's humorless ironies to rope, out of all the people in the world, the two of them together at Rinoa's summer slumber party.  Yes, Cary Kay had to be yet another one of Rinoa's myriad of annoying schoolmates that he was unfortunate enough to have to talk to at the totally ridiculous female bonding experience.

       Cary Kay did not mesh well with him, and not just because of the past history with her sister; their personalities clashed and she could unleash a daunting amount of insensibility and intractability when it came to serious board games like "FF: World Domination."

       Her existence offended him.  If there was one person who could take to hell with him it would be she, just so he could laugh at her for eternity.  Hopefully they still allowed you to laugh in hell.  Maybe it was prohibited.  He would have to remember to check with Diablos.

       To him, it was patently more realistic if, instead of being able to fortify one territory with any number of regiments from an adjacent district at the end of his turn, he should be able to fortify into any district of his so long as they were all connected, as any military expert would have no doubt extended supply lines and transport routes throughout secure territory.  Of course, he had figured the weathering of the supply lines by the length at which it was necessary to maintain, so he proposed the cost of sacrificing an increasing number regiments for each additional district traversed.  Hence, where players could only move maybe ten units to one adjacent region before, Seifer's proposal would have paved the way for players everywhere to move ten units to that area, then nine to a neighboring sector, then eight to the next local, and so forth until only one unit remained, at which point no more fortification could be done.

       Cary Kay had thought that the idea was the stupidest thing she had ever heard of.  She would rather treat the penciled board decorations of the White SeeD ship and the huge sea monster as transport vehicles between Galbadia and Trabia and between the Deep Sea Research Center and the Island Closest to Hell respectively, and she told him so.  Seifer did not take well to being patronized, and her simple-minded life was a mockery of eons of evolution.  He saw no other way to redeem the egregious wrong her existence posed to society but to lop off her head.  It was in fact his duty as a noble citizen to see the act done.

       But Rinoa liked her friends better un-decapitated, so he had to forbear his solemn duty to the state.

       Seifer rubbed his temples sorely.  Rinoa could never tell right from wrong.  It disgusted him.  She disgusted him, just like her schoolmates.  Just like Cary Kay.

       He never saw a reason for anyone to have two first names.  It just wasn't very efficient.

_       But the girl did know how to hold her tongue_, he conceded.

       For some reason that Cary Kay never divulged, she chose not to blow his cover and blurt out how she always speculated that Seifer kidnapped her sister.  And so Rinoa never knew, at least not while he had been in town.  In all honesty he had been glad to finally return to Garden for regular season training.  A summer's worth of seeing the same pasty, anorexic face was enough to warrant a vacation from vacation.  He counted himself lucky to not have to run into her until she and the SeeDs attempted the pitiful sorceress assassination in Deling City.

       Seifer scoffed silently.  _And we all saw how efficacious _they _were_.

       The only one who bit the dust in the execution of the plot was President Deling.  The man hadn't said much before the wussy SeeDs arrived, but it was not as if Seifer had expected him to.  Deling was no political mastermind who could understand the intricacies of the total system and evaluate how the removal of Shojora from power might profit him.  Frankly it seemed to Seifer that the President was not fit for much more than Iguon chow.

_       He got what was coming to him_, Seifer reasoned coolly.  _Better him than me, anyway_.

       In retrospect it was a grand waste of time to have personally made his way to the Timber broadcasting station to meet the political ignoramus.  Galbadia was a body politic without a head.  Seifer considered foolishness and incompetence more meritorious of criminal charges than whatever illegal activities he had been accused of practicing.

_       Not that giving the Balamb Judicial Board my opinion on the matter managed to exonerate me from their court martial_, he reflected glumly.

       But he had to admit that he had gotten off lightly.  Had he not gotten leniency, they might have ordered for him to be cremated alive.  World domination was capital offence to most governing bodies in the world.  Parole and community service seemed like a decent surrogate purgatory before he could work his way back up to the top.

_       This isn't too bad_, Seifer noted, surveying the cavernous enclosure around him.

He had the choice of digging his own grave or digging his way out.  The surface could not come sooner.  In the mailed tip he mysteriously received, there was a silent promise of freedom, a promise of something better than menial labor.  All work that was selfless he considered menial.  Mandatory volunteer service was so oxymoronic that it was in essence slavery, because in all its selflessness one did not get to do anything for oneself.

       Thinking back to the church group under whose domestic custody they were subject, Seifer marveled at length of their stay.  He reasoned that no religious sect could have afforded such a protracted excursion without some major funding, and certainly not through any legal channels.  Their patron had to be searching for something, employing and manipulating them for their labor under the guise of holy sanction.

_       Haven't the workers found whatever it is yet?_ he wondered.  _They've been at it for weeks_.

Seifer reconsidered out of contempt for the pseudo-spiritual fanatics who would by nature rely more on totally unqualified leaps of faith rather than common sense syllogistic reasoning.  Having asked around, it seemed as if none of them even knew who their sponsor was.  With so basic a detail eluding them, it seemed unlikely to assume they knew what they were doing, much less be able to grasp the true motive behind the campaign and what was to be achieved.

       But he was superior to them.  He had at least formed his own suspicions, and on top of that had substantive proof to validate what would Quistis would have rebuffed as impulsive speculation not uncommon for her former pupil.  The notice he had gotten in the mail that tipped him off about the archaeological dig had been sent by an unlikely old acquaintance with the kind of clout, political backing, and deep pockets that could sway a parole board – his to be exact.  Of course, it might be specious to link the two together, and even more reckless to link them both to the identity of the ecclesiastical benefactor, but if past experience in the field was of any indication, it proved advantageous more often than not for him to trust his gut instincts which at present told him all three were one and the same person.

_       But why in Eden would he help me?_ Seifer pondered.  _It's not like he owes me one_.

His eyebrows assumed a fearsome arch.  Not mincing words, their history together could only be described as bumpy.  Unwarranted benevolence warranted further scrutiny.  He didn't smell a trap, but that didn't mean that the patron's motive was entirely benign, and certainly not so free of suspicion that Seifer would let go of his caution any time soon.

       He wondered if Fuujin had any more of a clue than the sect's disciples about who their sponsor was.  She was the type who was comfortable with knowing more than she let on, as was oftentimes the case.  So easy and so careless was it to underestimate the truth behind silence.

His eyes that had fixated themselves on her now flitted over to Raijin.

_       Those who say nothing have something of value to say as I'm sure those who don't stop speaking have nothing of value to contribute_, he assessed coldly.

       Raijin, realizing that he was being observed, took a quick two-second sabbatical from his hammering to give his ringleader a cheesy grin.

       Seifer felt like smacking him.  He began to weigh the pleasure he would derive from socking Raijin in the mouth against the cost in time they would suffer from the consequent demoralization.  It would not be so devastating a setback that they couldn't afford it, and besides, it was just too tempting for him to pass up.

_       His wounds will heal anyway_, Seifer considered in the final stages of coaxing himself.  All he was looking for now was an excuse to walk over and wallop the big oaf.

Raijin must have realized it too because he instantly dropped the wide grin and turned back to his chiseling.

       For the first time in a while, Fuujin gave Seifer a discouraging look, more disappointed than irritated, but just as effective.  

       Seifer gritted his teeth but managed to check himself.  His consolation was that they were so close to completion.

       And inexplicably in that instant, a soothing calm washed over him and he heard in the back of his mind Yumey's coquette words, shaky but unguent with the sincerest trust, echoing as clearly as he'd heard them the day she spoke them as he led her barefoot onto the receptive sand, "Are we almost there?"

       And despite his knowing that Fuujin was close enough in proximity to hear him and sensing that she would be listening, and against his better judgment, Seifer indulged in his hallucination and whispered aloud, "Yes, we're almost there."

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	29. Setting 26: 1822 DAY 23, Deling City, Ca...

**Setting 26: 1822 DAY 23, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion B1**

_"They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision_

_because I see them through the mesh of a sieve."_

-Gibran, Kahlil

"A Handful of Sand on the Shore"

       _W__e're almost there_  Nonspecifically directed, self-assured declaration

       _How many times have we imprinted him in total_?  Earnest interrogative

       _Too many times to avoid notice_ Stalwart declaration, exasperation, and latent bitterness

       _How long do you think it will take for the city officials to trace the power surges to this location_?  Information interrogative and vestigial disgruntlement 

       _We still have time_ Calm declaration, mutual reassurance, commiseration, and hope 

       Rinoa, curious about the distant yet crystal-clear voices, crept silently down the steps and peered through the bars under the railing.

       _Who in Terra is throwing a party in my basement at this ungodly hour? _she wondered.  She was more miffed at not being invited to attend than annoyed by the thought of strangers stepping taking liberties in her house.  She spied two small luminescent dolls standing motionless in the center of the room.  A soft blue light emanated from their jelly-like bodies, topped off by glowing yellow orb at the end of each of their heads.

       She thought they were the cutest things she'd ever seen.  She wanted to gush over them, coo, dress them up, and play tea time.  If they had been on sale at a choice department store in the Galbadia mall, she would have bought them because of their appealing cuddliness.

       A second later she noticed the workbench next to the two intruders, crowded with many complex gadgets and advanced technology.  In their midst, strapped helplessly to the table, was the General.

       ?  Awareness and curiosity

_That wasn't you, was it_?  Specifically directed interrogative and wishful thinking

       _No_  Apprehension-bordering discomfiture

       _Then who –  _

_We have company_  Declaration and bittersweet humor

       !  Sudden realization, shock, and apprehension

       That was all she had to hear to know that they had detected her presence.  Standing up, she boldly derelicted her cover.

       "Who are you people?" she demanded to know.

       _Unfortunate you had to see this_  Patronization, affected sympathy, and imbedded threat

       It suddenly dawned on Rinoa why she could hear them with such clarity though they did not make any visible effort to communicate with her.

       "Why are you inside my head?" she cried at the frightening realization.

       _Goodnight_  Punchy retort and condescending dismissal

       One of the beings had moved over to the table and grabbed what she prayed was a stun gun and not a limb-severing laser.  Before she could move, it had aimed and shot her.  The blast knocked her off her feet and out of consciousness before her limp body could roll the remainder of way down the steps.

       _Holy Mother_!  Panic

       _That was unexpected_  Declaration of mild annoyance

       _Is there a contingency plan for this_?  Specifically directed, information interrogative and anxiety

       _At least we don't have to worry about fear of exposure anymore_  Mitigating ludicrous assessment and humor

_Quiet_!  Sudden expletive and flood of annoyance

       _Am I interfering with your calculations, comrade_?  Derisive rhetorical question

       _Be constructive for once, please_!  Brusque imperative directive and dismissal

       …  Conceded tolerance and mocking patience

       _What do we do now, QyQy_?  Specifically directed interrogative and prepared deference

       _We follow procedure_  Facile declaration and hint directive

       _Which is what_?  Information interrogative and curiosity

       _Annihilate them_  Nonspecifically directed imperative directive and sharp apathy

       …  Uncertainty, internal conflict, fading confidence, and resigned concession

       _Annihilate them all_  Specifically directed imperative directive and relentless affirmation

DIVISION 1: On the BREACH Terminus 

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

If you didn't catch this in Setting 01, the syntactical structure might seem a bit weird at first glance, because I have a unique method of transcribing what the aliens are communicating.

The "stage directions" after each line they communicates are necessary, and they aren't stage directions; PuPu's alien clan does not communicate with their voices, only their thoughts. They don't have facial expressions either, which means to communicate elements such as sarcasm or emotion, I have to add the "stage directions" and, if you noticed, keep the emotion-denoting punctuation marks (question or exclamation) outside of the brackets.

In actuality, those "stage directions" are called the "pragmatics" of language. The words they actually "speak" are called the "semantics" of language. Because they aren't actually making any sounds with their mouths, I used brackets instead of "quotations" to indicate what they want to communicate with their thoughts. Also, throughout the rest of the story, thoughts are _italicized_ and speech is unmodified. So what the aliens want to communicate show up _like this_.

However, even by including the pragmatics after the semantics, there is still no way I can differentiate for you which alien is which. If they did not greet each other when a third or fourth being waltzed in, or say their respective names in each line, we would have no idea who the addresser and addressee were for any given statement. That is the flaw of indirect narration, I'm afraid, and I will try to find was to rectify it.

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	30. Division One: Chapter Summaries

"Such a little man could not have made so big a depression."

-Norman Thomas PuPu's SagaÓ - The FF VIII Fanfic 

**by Jeremy ChapterÔ**** (Jeremy_Chapter@yahoo.com)**

_"I am a part of all that I have met;_

_Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'_

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades 

_For ever and for ever when I move."_

-Tennyson, Alfred, Lord

_Ulysses 18****_

Prologue: 1716 DAY 27, Tomb of the Unknown King Main Chamber 

_"O cruel one, bestow on me   
__Some taken of your sovereign sway,   
__Which I may follow earnestly,   
__And never from its precept stray.   
__If you would have me fade away   
__In silence, then account me dead,   
__But if you'd hear my ancient lady,   
__Then Love himself my cause shall plead.   
__My soul to contraries inured   
__Is made of wax and adamant,   
__And well prepared for Cupid's law.   
__Whether soft or hard my heart is yours,   
__To grave it leave to you I'll grant,  
__And to your will I'll bow with awe. _

-Cervantes  
_Don Quixote of La Mancha___

Squall is hurting very, very badly. Just as he is about to remember how he ended up in so precarious a situation, he looks up and sees Rinoa about to kill him.

Twenty-seven days earlier:

ENTRANCE   
DIVISION 1: ON THE WAKE 

Setting 01: 1220 DAY 0, Alcaud Plains around Balamb 

_"A savage race, that hoard, and sleep, and feed…know not me.  
__I cannot rest from travel."_

- Lord Alfred Tennyson  
_Ulysses 5_

PuPu the alien is murdered while wandering towards Balamb Garden to find Squall.

Setting 02: 1427 DAY 1, Winhill Cemetery 

_"This is my son…When I am gone. He works his work, I mine."_

-Lord Alfred Tennyson  
_Ulysses 33_

At Raine's grave marker, Laguna tells Raine how he feels about her and lets her know that their son is a success. He has totally misjudged Squall as being a person who doesn't need the opinions of others. Ellone, Kiros, and Ward arrive.

Setting 03: 1458 DAY 1, Winhill Outskirts 

_"Down stage he strode some paces,  
__grave, tall in affliction, his long arms outheld.  
__Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed softly.  
__Softly he sang to a dusty seascape there: A Last Farewell.  
__A headland, a ship, a sail upon the billows.  
__Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil awave  
__upon the wind upon the headland, wind around her."_

-James Joyce  
_Ulysses II_

Laguna has decided to stay in Winhill while Ellone decides to go back to Esthar accompanied by Ward and Kiros. By chance they meet on their way the current owner of Raine's house is infected by some fatal respiratory disease and collapses in a seizure. Only the Esthar medical technology can surgically cure her ailment, so Ellone gives up her seat on the convey.  Accordingly Kiros and Ward leave without her. Ellone waits by herself for the next ship.

Setting 04: 1533 DAY 1, Great Salt Lake Perimeter 

_"It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed,  
when that little wisdom is its own."_  
  
-W. R. Inge

Strange beings discuss where to land their ships and at least settle with an energy-rich location, Esthar. It is a good place to harbor their ship because the city itself is invisible.  Their objective is to find their lost comrade who never returned from a planetary sampling assignment. So far they have two human test subjects in their custody. They talk about taking another native to ransom back their comrade but decide instead to send another one of their party to go undercover and confirm their worst suspicions, that their comrade is dead.

Setting 05: 2045 DAY 1, Balamb Garden Ballroom 

_"How dull it is to pause, to make an end.  
_To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!"__

- Lord Alfred Tennyson  
_Ulysses 22_

At the party, Cid assigns the position of Headmaster of the new Trabia Garden to Squall. Quistis is designated Squall's aide and Selphie is to head the reconstruction crew. Squall receives a brief communication with Laguna.  Irvine and Zell are dispatched to investigate atmospheric phenomena along the four fields spread over the world. Mina, Zell's girlfriend, will be leaving for Galbadia the next morning.  Rinoa will stay at Balamb Garden for a week or two until things are settled in Trabia before going to see Squall.

11 days later:

Setting 06: 1730 DAY 12, Trabia Heath Peninsula Island 

_"'But now reach out your hand; open my eyes.'  
__And yet I did not open them for him;  
__And it was courtesy to show him rudeness."_

-Dante Alighieri  
_Inferno XXXIII___

Zell and Irvine have been working their way around to each of the mission sites and are about to close in on the one closest to Trabia. They are pretty pissed at being sent on what had seemed like a good mission but didn't turn out to be one. They were delayed during the negotiations with the Shumi and take turns blaming each other for it. They don't see anything at the sites but learn from the autochthonous people that there is a cow missing from the Winhill Bluffs. They can't get back to Trabia because they lost the keys to the Ragnarok.

Two days later:

Setting 07: 1417 DAY 15, Nova Trabia Garden Basketball Courts 

_"I am become a name;  
__for always roaming with a hungry heart  
__much have I seen and known,- cities of men  
__and drunk delight of battle with my peers."_

- Lord Alfred Tennyson  
_Ulysses 11_

Worried about the growing complaints about rampant theft in the new Garden, Quistis wanders onto the Garden basketball courts in a vain attempt to find Squall. Some students are playing there on their off time from the Garden close in her, mistaking her for Rinoa. A mysterious stranger saves her from the lusty pack, but is wounded in the process.  He turns out to be the criminal responsible for all the recent thefts.   
Quistis is surprised to find Irvine at the Trabia basketball courts with Zell.  They managed to make it back after checking their fourth and last site. Quistis remarks that Guardian Force Alexander took leave from her for vacation.

Setting 08: 1820 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Cliffs__

_"All times I have enjoy'd  
__greatly, have suffer'd greatly; both with those  
that loved me, and alone."_

- Lord Alfred Tennyson  
_Ulysses 7_

Squall is sitting on the cliff with his legs hanging over it, pondering to himself. He is in low spirits because he is still steamed at Rinoa after two weeks and will convince himself that she is no good for him. Quistis approaches him.

Setting 09: 1856 DAY 15, Balamb Garden Subsidiary Corridor 2F 

_"It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;  
it may be we shall touch the Happy Isles."_

- Lord Alfred Tennyson  
_Ulysses 62_

At Balamb Garden, Rinoa is abused by the girls who hate her because she took Squall off the market. She has an eating disorder. She decides Squall has had enough time to receive her and packs her bags to leave.  She is too busy to notice her kidnapper lurking behind her.

Setting 10: 1910 DAY 15, Directly over Esthar City 

_"Ah, Genoese, a people strange to every  
__constraint of custom, full of all corruption,  
__why have you net been driven from the world?"_

-Dante Alighieri  
_Inferno XXXIII_

The strange beings are now talking and have almost confirmed their suspicions that mankind is inherently bad and that the SeeD commander was perfectly capable and in some way ergo responsible for the death of one of their comrades. The more assertive alien tells that he already sent their undercover agent to carry out a more active role, and having completed the mission, was now moving to the second phase of their reprisal. The less aggressive alien is displeased for having been left out of the loop, remind the first that in the future they should collaborate as the rules stated, and that they were not out for revenge just yet. The mission should still be a study to ascertain the truth behind their companion's death. The less aggressive alien asks how their two human test subjects are doing and the response is the tests are going well.

Setting 11: 2018 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Cliffs 

_"It little profits… an idle king,  
__by this still hearth, among these barren crags."_

- Lord Alfred Tennyson  
_Ulysses 1_

Quistis finds Squall at sunset by himself sitting on the edge of Trabia's cliff looking out onto the ocean shore below him. He is wearing some weird orange and back t-shirt. Quistis didn't know when Squall started wearing shorts or smoking as he lights a small green piece of a Malboro tentacle. She tries to get him to talk about their feelings for each other before she is taken completely by Squall. When she realizes what she was about to do, she leaves back towards the Garden in a hurry. Squall suddenly hears a cry for help down below. He reluctantly leaps off the cliff and lands in the water to save a girl with ocean blue hair from some sea monster.

Setting 12: 2039 DAY 15, Just beyond Winhill Cemetery 

_"Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!  
Against stupidity the very gods  
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,  
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,  
Wise foundress of the system of the world,  
Guide of the stars, who are thou then, if thou,  
Bound to the tail of folly's uncurb'd steed,  
Must, vainly shrieking, with the drunken crowd,  
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss."_

-von Schiller, Johann Christian Friedrich

Laguna jumps into a deep crevice to save the bar owner's cat who had fallen in. Back up top, Kiros and Ward wait for him.  They have come back after two weeks of not hearing from Laguna or Ellone. Laguna is taking an exceptionally long time climb back up so they head into town, but en route meet a traveling student and childhood friend of Selphie from Trabia. Stiltzkin, the traveling moogle in FF9 is accompanying him. The student reveals that he arrived from Galbadia and had documented a fascinating anti-Malboro campaign. He'd also met a woman named Mina there. Finally Kiros and Ward go back and Laguna is done. After pulling himself up and letting the cat go, Laguna loses his footing before the neighbors can grab him and drops back into the gorge and knocks himself out.

Setting 13: 2041 DAY 15, Nova Trabia Garden Officers' Lounge 1F 

_"Captaining this venture was a woman."_

-Vergil  
_Aeneid I_

In the Trabia Garden lounge, Selphie thinks about her hard day managing the construction site and teaching the math class. She gets stuck in a sofa and her student has to help her out. She starts reading the reports when Irvine and Zell barge in. She is surprised to see them and inevitable gets into a fight with Irvine. A nervous Quistis, having rushed back into the Garden, steps in. Irvine ends up leaving with Quistis and Selphie, and Zell storms towards the Garden exit by himself.

Setting 14: 2059 DAY 15, Archaeological Excavation Site on the Outskirts of Nova Trabia 

_"A man is not finished when he's defeated; he's finished when he quits."  
  
-Richard Nixon_

Having made parole, Seifer and his posse are busy digging a tunnel towards Trabia Garden under the pretense of helping a church group excavate an archaeological dig site.  The church group has been searching for buried religious relics for the past two weeks. Seifer remembers what the sorceress Ultimecia/Edea had done to seduce him; she gave him a trial that he could not hope to pass.

**Setting 15: 2110 DAY 15, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion 2F (Master Bedroom)**

_"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;  
__what is essential is invisible to the eye.  
  
-Antoine De Saint-Exupery_

Rinoa snaps awake and finds herself in General Caraway's mansion.   Without her asking, her father promises to arrange her marriage to Squall. Angelo has been placed in a kennel outside the house because he can't keep quiet. Rinoa is visited by two of her friends who tell her that she was brought into the house by a midget whom they have mistaken to be her new boyfriend. Rinoa has no clue what they are talking about, and she is worried because her father isn't acting like himself.

Setting 16: 2115 DAY 15, Trabia Coast-bordering Forests 

_"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts,  
than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."_

-Gandhi

Zell, trudging through the dark forest, is pissed because of the trouble he had at the Chinese diner when he was trying to get his mind off of Mina and explain what looked like a conspiracy against him. He fails to find any other way of explaining the photo of Mina and the man who looked sort of like Squall. A trainee girl named Rishi had tried to comfort him because he looked so miserable. In the woods, he runs into a silver-haired girl and saves her from a voracious Blue Dragon. He barely manages to beat it, and the girl runs away without thanking him.  
            When he is by himself again, he sits down against a tree trunk and pulls out a crumpled photo of a girl and a dark-haired guy with their hands wrapped around each other, smiling at the camera. He remembers a riddle she asked him long ago but he cannot answer it. Tired, frustrated and hurt, he falls asleep.

**Setting 17: 0019 DAY 16, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion 2F (Master Bedroom)**

_"Love me faithfully!  
__See how I am faithful:  
__With all my heart  
__And all my soul  
__I am with you  
__Though I am far away."_

_Carmina Burana_  
"Omnia Sol Temperat"

Rinoa wakes up with a start, having had a nightmare involving Squall's drowning. She is locked inside the Master Bedroom.  She remembers that after her father left her room, his lawyer had dropped by and unlocked the door to come talk to her.  Apparently her father is in danger of losing his house because of a potential law suit for everything that Julia earned from her hit song since the plaintiff, Faye Wong's manager, claims that Julia wasn't the one who sang the song. Caraway complains that most of Julia's profits were managed by a trust fund committee for an unnamed trustee before she died. The 10 members of the board expired almost immediately after the trust fund was in effect, so it was impossible now to find out who inherited the money. Additionally, a major drain on the family income is his investment in the global astronomy program into which Caraway stopped putting money. The lawyer leaves her, locking the door behind him. 

The next morning:

Setting 18: 0716 DAY 16, Trabia Coast-bordering Forests 

_"__All human things are subject to decay,  
_And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey."__

-John Dryden

Zell wakes up in the forest with a colossal backache. On the way back to Garden, he spies a person lying on the beach. He is vexed even more when he realizes that it is actually two people lying together, Squall and another girl.  
         Zell returns to Trabia Garden by himself, very disgruntled.  At the gate, the girl he saved in the forest from the previous night meets up with him and introduces herself as Pearl.  She had been searching for her friend whom she lost her the day before. She would love to see the inside of Garden.  
Zell has to argue with the gatekeeper before he can clear Pearl for entry. They run into Rishi who immediately develops an antagonism towards Pearl. Irvine joins them. Quistis finds them both and drags them into the boardroom to listen to an urgent message from the Shumi.

Setting 19: 0744 DAY 16, Trabia Coastline 

_"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream._

_Wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate streams._

_World losers and world forsakers, for whom the pale moon gleams._

_Yet we are movers and the shakers of the world forever it seems."_

-Arthur O'Shaunessey

Squall wakes up and finds a girl warmly resting against him and isn't sure what to do. She has pale skin, memorizing blueberry lips, and aquamarine eyes. She looks more like a sea goddess than a human. 

The girl, Merali, looks around frantically for something that she has lost, but she does not say what it is. She eventually gives up.  He then gives her a lift back into town. When he returns to Nova Trabia Garden, he finds that the Shumi have called and complained about Irvine and Zell possibly stealing an undisclosed but valuable object. Because there was no proof that it could not have been stolen before Irvine and Zell arrived, Squall dismisses the case.

Five days later:

Setting 20: 2315 DAY 21, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion B1

_"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."_

-Russell, Bertrand

The aliens talk about PuPu being a prince and how that escalates matters. The mother-ship arrived two days before and took their space over Esthar. They need to relocate.  They mention the difficulty of keeping Caraway under their control. One alien tries to convince the other that Squall is the criminal. They plan to move to the Tomb of Unknown Kings.

Setting 21: 2320 DAY 21, Downtown Nova Trabia Commercial District 

_"Without the discipline of service and obedience,  
__fear remains formal and does not spread over the whole known reality of existence.  
__Without the formative activity shaping the thing,  
__fear remains inward and mute, and consciousness does not become objective for itself."_

-G. W. F. Hegel

The mysterious thief who saved Quistis is perched on the rooftop of a commercial building waiting for a shop across the street to close so he can rob it. He sees a man in black and a gun-blade walk out.  
After walking out the store, Squall smokes and thinks about his three recent outings with Merali. He is looking for a present to buy her but all the shops are now closed.

Two days later:

Setting 22: 1733 DAY 23, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion B1

_"Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue."   
  
_

-Don Marquis__

The Almost Perfect State

Aliens go seize Caraway to be re-brainwashed.  It is risky because it is still bright outside and there have been many power shortages in the area because of their activity.

Setting 23: 1812 DAY 23, Esthar Palace Command Center 2F

"I consider chaos a gift."

-Septima Clark

In Esthar, continued electronic disturbances have worsened considerably in the past two days, keeping their communication and transportation from functioning properly.  Kiros and Ward have their hands full so they don't have time to investigate why Ellone hasn't returned from Winhill, nor find a way to contact Laguna for help.  Without any working safeguards, the whole city, including the palace, has been infiltrated by creatures.  
        Dr. Odine is bumbling out, clearing out his basement of old files classified as "low priority, limited use" because trifling matters about humans without splicing some monster genes was too elementary and he needed more space to build a large battery for a grand operation.   He thus has no time to analyze what is causing these disturbances.  He bumps into Kiros and spills the stack of documents he was carrying.  Neither pays any attention to the folder titled "Heartilly abortion" with "11th success" scribbled haphazardly on the side as they toss it into the disintegrator.  Another file titled "Crystallization of Great Salt Lake" was also tossed.

**Setting 24: 1810 DAY 23, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion 2F (Master Bedroom)**

"Everyone has a talent; what is rare is the courage

to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads."

 -Erica Jong

        Rinoa wakes up in the dark and wonders who turned the lights off for her.  It turns out that there has been a power failure.  She discovers that one of the floorboards in the room is a bit shaky.  Removing it, she finds a compartment containing her mother's old diary.  Rinoa finds the emergency gas lamp and lights it to peruse a few random pages.  She finds some notes for her mother's hit song "Eyes on Me," and then some barely legible scribbling that says, "Now a girl."  
        General Caraway can't be found anywhere in the mansion, and she can't hear Angelo's barking either.  
        She decides to check out the basement where she is sure her father is checking the circuit breakers.

Setting 25: 1813 DAY 23, Directly under Nova Trabia Garden

_"Now go; a single will fills both of us:_

_You are my guide, my governor, my master."_

-Dante Alighieri

Inferno II

       Seifer can't believe his scheme might actually succeed, and none of it would have happened had he not heard that the church group had already been operating in Trabia and that an old friend of his was funding the dig.  It seemed to him that no one else in the church group knew the sponsor.

Setting 26: 1822 DAY 23, Deling City, Caraway's Mansion B1

_"They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision_

_because I see them through the mesh of a sieve."_

-Kahlil Gibran

       Rinoa stumbles into a smoke-filled basement coughing.  She suddenly realizes that her father is strapped to a table and there are many mechanical devices lying about.  She pales when she sees two other entities present...short, green aliens.  They spot her and immediately nail her with a gas gun and she remembers nothing except falling down the flight of stairs in a choking frenzy.

DIVISION 1 Terminus 


	31. Setting 27: 1831 DAY 23, Directly under ...

**ENTRANCE**

DIVISION 2: BREAK-IN

**Setting 27: 1831 DAY 23, Directly under Nova Trabia Garden**

_"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."  
  
_

-Einstein, Albert

       _H_e saw spots.  He saw spots run.  Maybe his vision flickering was a telltale sign that the oxygen-to-carbon dioxide ratio in the tunnel was dropping dangerously low.

       Seifer checked his watch for the time, which turned out to be a pain because he hadn't the foresight to buy one with organic, electro-luminescent cells.  The damn thing didn't glow, which meant he would have to angle it with respect to the inadequate lighting provided by the rotten Tonberry lamp.  The odor of kerosene was simply foul.

       Doubts about the mission began to enter his mind.  What if their obscure patron had set up a trap for him?  What if operation turned out to be more onerous than he had bargained for?

       _I can't go back now_, he reminded himself glumly._  I can't go anywhere_.  _Probably best get my act together and my head in the right place._

       For once he was more tired than bored.  He decided to crack his knuckles to pass the time.  It had been almost twelve minutes since he last beat Raijin or had the desire to do so.

       _Hmm, better call him up_ _on something then_, he reasoned.  _The last time the little freak got off easy.  I should have gone ahead and socked him._

       "Raijin!" he snapped.  "How much further we do have to go?"

       A lethargic pair of eyes looked up in his direction and then veered down some forty degrees to scan the soot-covered map.

       "Never mind," Seifer dismissed in disgust before Raijin could shrug.

       _You had the map upside down anyway, nitwit_, he contemplated bitterly.

       He could have chosen to rail on Raijin vociferously, but one quick look over at Fuujin rubbing her wrists told him that everyone was so exhausted that it was no surprise that the big oaf could not think straight.

       "If your mother could only see what a spelunker I've made of you," Seifer commented instead.  _He'll probably ask me in a few minutes what 'spelunker' means._

       The mordant sting that habitually accompanied his snide remarks was notably absent in his remark.  Catching the peculiarity, Fuujin set down her pickaxe and gazed at him for a second.

       "I don't think hauling bits of rock for two weeks qualifies as cave exploration _per se_," Titanus growled from farther down in the pit.

       "That's enough out of you, Mister Second-Tier-Guardian-Force," Seifer snapped.

       Though the illuminative range of the gas lantern did not extend far enough to show him what Titanus was doing, he was pretty sure the GF was retaliating to Seifer's scorn with some lewd gesture below the waist…

       …that was until he picked up a shovel and sent it whistling through the air towards Seifer's head.

       It would have been messy had it actually connected, but Seifer ducked the projectile with professional ease.

       "Don't worry," Seifer shouted at his assailant, "because in a few weeks, I'll be out of your life forever."  _Everyone's usefulness has an expiry date.  Your time is almost up._

       "Are you going to fire me?" the GF replied immediately in an affected, hopeful tone.  "Because if you are, that would be super."

       The subordinate clause ended in a caustically humorless pitch.

       "SERIOUS," Fuujin quickly interjected amidst their testosterone-pissing bout.

       Seifer ignored her, focusing intensely on the witch's spy.  _In due time my skills will have surpassed yours._

       Aloud, he advised the demon knight with a grin, "If I were you I would learn to appreciate me while you can since now is the only time we'll ever have with each other."

       Departing from her accustomed single-word utterances, Fuujin whispered in her corner, "Now is our eternity."

       The other three attendants stopped to a dead halt and looked at her in stunned amazement.  In Seifer's opinion, Raijin could have tried to hide his oafish look of incredulity a bit more.

       "What's a spelunker?" Raijin ventured to ask, revealing once again that he had been autistically oblivious to the drama that had taken place around him.

       Yet his words had been enough to break the ice.

       "All right, everyone," Almasy eventually said, shaking off his goose bumps and reanimating the cavern, "back to work."  _That sounds so familiar.  Where have I heard that before?_

But around the corners of his mind he found no answers forthcoming, only more corners that led to an endless maze of veiled dissimulations and confusion.  It was as if his uncooperative memory was eating away his history.

       Seifer gave up at length and tried again to focus on the immediate situation.

_       Father, wait for me_, he repeated in his mind, sobering_.  I am coming.  I am coming._

His eyelids narrowed over a pair of eyes lit with passion.  _I have the witch's weapon and I am coming to take back what is ours._

       At that minute, just six meters above their heads, a serious-looking man with a conspicuous blue suit was herding loitering Garden interns out of the main corridor and bidding them to return to their posts.

       "Back to work, everyone!" Sergeant Jay barked the order.  "Do not continue lingering in the hall after the false theft alarm!"

       The honorary medals pinned on the breast pocket of his Garden uniform rattled cacophonously.  He had polished badges so meticulously that no passerby could have missed his new designation as the head of the Disciplinary Committee.  And he had been bossing everyone around so relentlessly since lunch hour that there was no one in the entire Garden who did not know about the promotion Commander Leonhart had given him.

       "To Diablos with him!" a second-year trainee cursed as she and her colleague walked away towards the main lobby elevator.

       "Can he get any more annoying?" the other whispered back.

       While they waited for the elevator, the two exchanged with expert efficiency a fair portion of gossip and giggles.  They conversed about the intercom broadcast from Headmaster Cid of Balamb Garden about the appointment of Quistis Trepe as the new Headmistress of Nova Trabia Garden and the possible political implications of such a promotion, as well as how unfortunate it was that the announcement had been followed by the theft alarm, which was probably a drill.  They made mutual exclamations over the latest dating habits of the lone wolf SeeD Commander and how someone had gotten tips about the specific hours that he would be in the weight room this week.  They chatted giddily about the new Mogberry Arctic Latte sensation at the 'Garden Ricebox' eatery.

       Seeing the door opening, they quieted down and tried to conceal their smiles.  A man in the standard dark SeeD uniform walked out of the elevator with a similarly outfitted blonde woman carrying a folder close on his heels.  There was a discernible air of tension between them as if some strong words had recently been exchanged.

       As they walked past the two female trainees, the first grabbed the latter's arm excitedly.

       "Isn't that Commander Leonhart?" she squealed.

       Her back turned to the two girls, Quistis rolled her eyes.  _First-years_.

       "And our new Headmistress," the other intern added dully.

       "I liked her pink skirt better," her friend remarked as they stepped into the elevator.

       "Yeah, she looks so old in that," came the agreement almost too quickly.

       "Definitely too old for him," they giggled in unison as the doors closed behind them.

       By then, Quistis had caught up with Squall on the limestone bridge.  One part of her wanted to turn around and wring their slender little necks, but the more professional side of her compelled her swallow her slighted pride.  Shrugging off slander was part of the responsibility that came with a public image that she had long come to accept.

       "Squall, you haven't heard a word I've said!" she cried, focusing back on the original issue.

       _Maybe because I've gone deaf from your shouting at me in the elevator_, he conjectured crossly.

       "Huh, what?" he verbalized, voice completely devoid of any humor.

       "Will you slow down?" she asked, grabbing his coat sleeve and pulling him to a stop.

       The commander turned and looked at her silently.

       "These thefts are an ever-growing concern, especially now when they've hit home," the Headmistress told him.

       _So this is home now?_ he wondered, resisting the urge to lift a questioning eyebrow.  _Are you sure you aren't taking this Headmistress position too personally?_

       "I heard the alarm five minutes ago too," he reminded her.

       Had Quistis been a mere modicum more exasperated, she would have broken protocol and slapped him for so infuriatingly stating the obvious.

       "What do you want me to do?" Squall inquired.  "I've already heightened security."

       Quistis cocked her head at an angle in disbelief.

       "You assigned Sergeant Jay the head position on the Disciplinary Committee!" she argued.

       "Yes," Squall muttered in the most uninterested tone, "and I thank you for reporting to me my own executive decisions."

       "What was your rationale behind that promotion?" she prodded further.

       "I think he is an assiduous worker," he answered, though he felt the need to explain himself was definitely lacking.  "He is fully capable of handling this escalating situation."

       "Did you even read my officer's report?" she countered angrily.

       _Yes, I always read _everything, he wanted to scream in her ear.

       "It was my call," Squall declared flatly.  "That's the end of it."

       "No," Quistis retorted, "I outrank you as of seven minutes ago and I am rescinding your order."

       Squall could have frowned if he actually took her seriously for even a second.  Propitiously for him he was well versed enough in technical details and regulations that he would not have to resort to ever taking her seriously.

       He meticulously explained to her how her new administrative status did not give her jurisdiction over decisions regarding the executive branch of the Garden, which were still at the complete discretion of the superior SeeD officer, citing three similar cases of chain-of-command discrepancies from previous years.

       "That would be me," Squall concluded, thrusting his thumb into his chest to point at himself in case the Headmistress missed the underlying theme of the explanation.  _I am that superior SeeD officer_.

       _I'm familiar with the cases_,Quistis thought to herself.  _You don't need to lecture me like that, Squall.  I'm a senior officer, not a senior citizen_.

       "I don't think Jay is competent," she voiced through clamped teeth instead.__

       "On what grounds?" Squall questioned, scowling.

       "The shot was aimed at me!" she protested in reference to misfire made by the trigger-happy sergeant.  _Please don't look at me like that.  It's frightening._

       After glaring at her for a while longer, Squall finally decided to roll his eyes.  _Now really…_

       "It was!" she repeated weakly.  She wanted to stamp her feet.

       "Then how did the bullet hit the burglar?" Squall asked skeptically.  _Why am even I talking to you?_

       Quistis bit her bottom lip.  It was impossible to depict the full account to Squall so that he would understand her frustration without betraying the intrigue between her and the man who had saved her life.  Still, she had to room to maneuver.

       "Your report said that Sergeant Jay chased down the culprit and managed to score a direct hit on the man, isn't that right?" he cross-examined her before she could put up a rebuttal.

       "Yes," she argued, "it happened that way, but-"

       Selphie, with Irvine and Zell in hot pursuit, ran full tilt into the two commanding officers and nearly bowled them over.  When they had all recovered their footing, she looked up at Squall sheepishly like a melting lemon gumdrop.

       "He started it!" she said quickly, pointing at Irvine, and then ran behind Quistis using her as a shield.

       Irvine and Zell, smartly dressed in their dark SeeD uniforms, pretended to discuss something acutely interesting over the side of the bridge and acted as if they had no part in the unpleasantry.  Their guise of sudden sophistication didn't fool anyone. 

       "Aren't you a bit old for a game of tag?" Quistis reproached Selphie, noticeably irritated at the younger girl for interrupting the rare opportunity for a private moment with Squall.

       Selphie seemed to understand the odd moment at which she had arrived on the scene and did her best to look apologetic.

       "Sorry, Quisty," she whispered and squeezed Quistis' arm for reassurance.

       Quistis didn't mean to do so, but on reflex she rudely shook Selphie's hand off.  The latter pulled back as if she had been stung.  The better half of Quistis got the best of her, and she instantly regretted her action.  It was unbearable to see a darling like Selphie cringe.

       "Why aren't you in uniform?" Squall questioned abruptly, pointing at her yellow mini-skirt.

       "I'm boycotting it because it's two-percent leather!" Selphie exclaimed idealistically.  "Creatures have a right to life too!"

       Quistis just stared at her former student.

       "I'll have to file a SeeD salary demotion of two levels against you if you don't change before your next shift starts," the commander warned Selphie.

       "But I like my outfit!" Selphie pouted obstinately.

       Squall glared at her, and she scowled right back at his intense eyes.  For a split-second Quistis thought he might actually drop his undeviating aplomb, pick Selphie up and shake her in the air.  Even though he didn't move a muscle, it seemed as though he wanted to holler in her ear, "You are supposed to be a construction worker!"

       Irvine scratched the back of his neck nervously.  The rest of the spectators held their breaths.

       But Selphie eventually sniffled and was the first to look away from the tenuous stalemate.  She sniffled, rubbed her eyes melodramatically, and scampered off to find Dante for some commiseration.  For some reason she felt that her subordinate always understood what she was feeling.

       The corridor she was heading towards suddenly produced a familiar face that drove her to widen her eyes in fear.  It was that pesky student, Lily Furgle.  She remembered the rash promise she made and looked back nervously at Squall, the unwitting beneficiary and victim.  Given the circumstances, Selphie opted to avoid eye contact with Furgle and to try to evade her completely.  She ducked behind the nearest column and, scampering from pillar to pillar with successive rests in the lee of each, took the long way around the voluminous lobby to her exit. 

       Having won his point against Selphie, Squall resumed his brisk but stately walk to the officer's lounge.  Zell elbowed Irvine knowingly and ran over to Squall with a ploy to put him into better spirits.

       Quistis shook her head.  Absent-mindedly she turned her head to watch Selphie leave.  Her movements were curiously awkward.  She squinted and scrutinized the girl more carefully.  _Why is Selphie slinking away like that?_

       Quistis furrowed her brow but emitted a half-chuckle.  Then she noticed that the men had gained quite a distance from her.  She hurried to catch up to them, though it was a feat even then to just keep up with their peripatetic pace.  She had gotten the impression that as of late they were walking faster or taking longer strides when she was around.

       "Where are you headed?" she asked Irvine in passing.

       "Basketball courts," he replied as he headed in the direction for the gymnasium.

       "Be careful not to incur any more fines," she told him.

       Irvine gave her the thumbs-up without turning back to look at her.

       "And Irvine –" she called out before he had taken more than four steps.

       Irvine's back visibly stiffened at the addition, and jerkily arresting his pace, he looked back hesitantly.

       "–it's good that you finally ironed your uniform," she finished with an approving nod.

       The sharpshooter grinned in relief and headed into a perpendicular corridor before Quistis remembered to ask about whether or not his restriction from the basketball courts had been lifted.  For a moment, just before he disappeared from view completely, she thought he had paused for the briefest of moments in mid-stride, as though he had caught a glimpse of a familiar face out of the corner of his eye, but had found only phantoms of the mind upon a second look.  Gradually her thoughts drifted back to the business at hand.

       "You really got to hand it to Selphie," Zell chirped, hanging awkwardly over Squall's shoulder.  "Is this lobby a visual stunner or what?"

       Squall slowed his steps and scanned the atrium as if it had been his first time to set foot in Nova Trabia.  The water for the artificial river that ran under the white cobblestone bridge had been pumped in, and the indoor waterfall was functioning beautifully.  Bits of Dragon Fin and Orihalcon had been deliberated poured into the riverbed to make the bottom shimmer under the organic, electro-luminescent chandeliers hanging from the altitudinous ceiling.  Water Crystals were homogenously embedded on the squares of cobblestone, and she had also taken meticulous care to have Moon Stone embossing the corbels of each of the twelve semi-circularly pillars stationed around the perimeter of the grand chamber.  Each corridor entrance was surmounted by tri-lobed archways and a corresponding triangular gable with Coral Fragment filigree micro-architecture interspersed along the polished walls.  He didn't know why he hadn't been up to his usual, impeccable circumspection to notice it.

       Squall mentally whistled.__

_       Maybe it's because she hasn't blown anything up yet today_, he tried to make an excuse for himself in order to assuage the sting of self-reproach.  _She ought to be less extravagant with the materials budget._

       The more he got to thinking about it, the more he thought Headmaster Cid's assignment of construction detail to Selphie when her natural talent clearly lied with deconstruction was as ill-advised and unqualified as his order for Irvine and Zell to handle negotiations with their Shumi patrons.

       Seeing that the aesthetic ambience had put him into a more pensive mood, Zell took the chance to ask Squall about his new blue-haired belle.

       "I see you hanging out with her all the time," Zell commented in a half-accusatory tone.  "Even saw you take her to McChocobo's for lunch on Wednesday."

       _As if that were some sacred place_, Squall retorted silently.

       He took an extra second to decide between denying the allegation and throwing Zell's chummy arm off of his own.

       "I bet you don't even know her name," the latter goaded him.  _I wonder if he even knows Rinoa's name anymore._

       Squall glared at Zell but was clearly surprised that his companion knew this fact.

       "In case you're wondering, I know her name," he gloated, quite unnecessarily in the shocked SeeD Commander's opinion.

       He was meanwhile falling through a cascade of mixed emotions.  _Zell as a source of intelligence?  Do I believe him?  How in the name of Odin did he-_

       "What are you two talking about?" came the voice from behind them.

       Quistis broke into the fray, stepping between the two of them before he had the chance to question Zell.

       Squall was half-relieved to have been liberated from supporting Zell's body-weight, half-annoyed that he now had Quistis under his own arm.  It would evoke a shameful sense of schoolgirl-squeamishness and be egregiously impolite if at this point Commander Leonhart were to struggle like mad to free himself, even if that was what he wanted to do.

       Over Quistis' shoulder he looked back at Zell and thought to himself, _I guess one needn't be intelligent to report intelligence_.  But if the principle of Occam's Razor had any merit in it, then in this case like any other the simpler solution would be the correct one.  On this more probable interpretation he settled and turned the question of Zell's sudden illumination from his mind; Zell was probably just horsing around.  The white lie was a joke meant to goad him on, egging him as childhood chums might.

       The party of three turned down the main corridor where former Sergeant Jay was interrogating an unprepossessing vagabond with a huge satchel slung over his shoulder.  In his hand was a slip that Jay was trying vigorously to decipher.

Seeing them coming down the hall, the new head of the Disciplinary Committee saluted first the Commander, then the Headmistress, and finally snickered when he saw Zell, whom he greeted with, "Not thinking of causing any trouble today, are you, Dincht?"

       Stepping out from under Squall's arm, Quistis moved between Zell and Jay as arbiter and tried to shift their attention back to the newcomer.  Save for the boy's torn overcoat, sharp visor, and blue cap, he was dressed inconspicuously as far as vagrants went.

       "What is his business here, Sergeant?" Quistis inquired.

       "Lieutenant," her addressee corrected her, indiscreetly brushing his fingers over the insignia pinned over his left breast pocket.

       Quistis was scowling too hard to blink.

       "He claims he is the new head librarian, but he doesn't have any formal identification cards or reference letters to work here," Jay picked up again.  "Even his passport is suspect because it was just stamped by Balamb emigration only yesterday."

       The senior officers exchanged looks, and Squall looked at Quistis for an explanation.

       Quistis turned her gaze to the stranger who was either intimidated by the interrogation or growing tired of it.  It was hard to tell with his visor over his eyes.

       "_You're_ Jeremy Chapter?" she asked incredulously.

       It was against high societal policy for women to snort uncontrollably.  As such, Quistis suppressed the impulse and wordlessly opened the folder in her hands without waiting for an answer to verify his identity against the enclosed photograph.  She systematically flipped past a half dozen pages listing Nova Trabia Garden SeeD exam scores and names of newly initiated Balamb Garden SeeDs and found his transfer application.

       "We were expecting you to arrive yesterday," the Headmistress continued talking just as he was about to give affirmation.

       Redundantly she added, "You're late."

       Not knowing what to say to that, the newcomer rubbed his shoulder uncomfortably.  Whatever he was toting in the bag must have been heavy.

       Quistis guessed that it was probably everything he owned.  She then motioned to Squall that he could go on ahead and that she would catch up with him later.  Squall shrugged and walked into the lounge with Lieutenant Jay and Zell vying for his attention.

       "Follow me to the new library facilities where we've been depositing whatever survived the missile attacks from the old Trabia Garden library," Quistis told Jeremy.

       As they walked down the hall, she said, "You won't need those in here," and relieved him of his visor.  He instinctively began to protest, but she interjected that he would get them back as soon as he had forgotten about them.

       Just as they neared the door to the new library, a female Garden student carrying a bulging crate of miscellany came out through it.

       "Do you need help?" Chapter offered.

       "Nah," the girl said, "but thanks anyway."

       "Is there anything I can do to make you stay, Katie?" Quistis asked her, skipping the courtesy introduction.  "We'd hate for you to leave."

       "Sorry, Headmistress Trepe," the other replied, visibly touched, "but I found another opportunity elsewhere, and I really want to go with it."

       Jeremy looked at the two ladies blankly and waited for the Headmistress to give him an introduction that never came.

       Katie's eyes drifted to one side as if she were recollecting some moment worth becoming nostalgic over, but then, retracing back to the present, gave a curt smile.  She hoisted the already overflowing box to a different position and tried to step around her two interlocutors.  In the bustle, a marble fountain pen shifted out of its original position and fell to the floor.

       Jeremy bent over and picked it up.  The way he was shouldering the bulky bag as if he was afraid to set it down on the floor made the simple retrieval a challenge even for a contortionist.

       But he managed and was about to fix it in some place deeper in the carton when Katie shook her head.

       "No, you can keep it," she told him.  "I still have plenty."

       "Oh, thank you," Jeremy said, his countenance betraying his surprise.  "My first fountain pen!"

       "You're the new librarian, right?" Katie asked with a cursory glance at his outfit.

       Chapter nodded with a bright beam.

       "You're late," she commented dryly and walked right past him, heading towards the far end of the hall.  She had not taken more than a few steps before she nearly collided with Sergeant Jay who was headed in the opposite direction.  Quistis breathed sharply but then exhaled easily when she saw that the potential disaster had been averted.  Katie gave him a disapproving look and continued on her way towards the Garden Main Gate.

       The lieutenant walked over to the entrance of the library and took something out of his pocket.  Quistis waited for him to say something.

       "Kinneas couldn't find anything on it with preliminary searches," Jay said, showing them a circular piece of jewelry.

       "Well, it's more than a bracelet," Quistis reminded him.  _Why don't you make yourself useful and pick up the paper trail, Sergeant?_

       "I agree," Jay informed her.  "In fact, our research team had something interesting to say about it."

       "Well, what?" the Headmistress grumbled, slightly irritated at having to wait again for the man to speak.

       "Their scanners indicated that it wasn't artificially produced," the man clarified.

       He then handed it to Jeremy.  Quistis eyed the bracelet with a frown.

       "You're the bookkeeper now," he said.  "Here is your first assignment.  I want a report telling me exactly what this thing is and how it ended up on my beach by tomorrow morning."

       The serious-looking man remained standing there after he was done.

       "Don't you have a thief to catch, 'Sergeant'?" Quistis snubbed him bluntly.  _I hope he kills you_.

       It occurred to her Jay would have been the perfect, expendable unit that she could send to tail Seifer – the proverbial sacrificial lamb.  She had no compunction about signing this virtual death warrant, if she didn't think he was totally incompetent and wouldn't even have the slimmest chance of completing the mission.

       Meanwhile, the condescension in her voice had been unmistakable.

       Having asserted his authority over the new guy and not particularly keen on seeing it slip away, Lieutenant Jay clicked the heels of his polished shoes together, turned, and departed without further prompting.

       Jeremy turned and looked at the Headmistress.

       "I read the Garden standard operating procedures manual, ma'am," he spoke with some hesitation, "but I don't remember coming across any salute that matches what he just did."

       "I think he just made that up," Quistis shooting a dirty look in Jay's general direction.  "At any rate, I want that same report on my desk an hour before he gets it."

       "Of course," he replied and excused himself to get a head start on his assignment.

       Just after Jeremy disappeared through the door, Quistis caught Squall and Zell exiting the officer's lounge out of the corner of her eye.  Turning her head, she called for them to wait and walked over to them.

       "Have you managed to locate Seifer?" she posed openly so that either man could answer.

       While her gesture effectively doubled the response probability, twice of zero was still zero.  They looked between her and each other and conveniently decided that it was the other's turn to deal with her.  By all rights she should have beat them both senseless for this demeaning treatment, but there were no mop handles within arm's reach.

       Squall looked as antsy as an expressionless person could.  She guessed that she was putting him behind in his daily docket with her nagging.  He was a fanatic about being punctual, unlike most guys his age.  She wondered if he would have spent more time with her if he hadn't decided that she was a colossal waste of time.

       It eventually occurred to them that she was not going to let them off the hook until one of them replied to her question.  Zell scratched and back of his neck and deferred to his commanding officer.

       Squall frowned at him for the briefest of seconds and then explained to Quistis that his statisticians did not think that Seifer posed enough threat to warrant sending an investigator.  The fact that he had volunteered for the missionary cause actually reduced the odds of his becoming further involved in criminal activity.  Additionally, the Nova Trabia Garden legal advisory committee was unanimous in their review that Seifer had not technically violated his parole.  In short, Quistis was being paranoid.  Squall would have told her to check out Seifer's whereabouts personally if she was so concerned about him, that is, if he didn't think her responsibilities as the new Headmistress put as massive a restriction as they did on how much she could do in her free time.

       "You know as well as I do that normative probability statistics don't apply to Seifer," Quistis refuted his reasoning.  "He is an ubiquitous wildcard."

       It was Squall's turn to scratch the back of his neck and look bored.  This maneuver he and Zell had been switching off in performing for the past five minutes but he had uncharacteristically missed the next beat and ruined the rhythm of the trade-off.

       "He has been underground for over a week, Squall," Quistis pressed further, "possibly three!"

       Squall stared straight ahead into space, trying to see past her head.  _Maybe she isn't really talking to me.  Maybe she's speaking to someone else._

       "Zell himself confirmed the reports of Seifer being in Nova Trabia!" she continued to squawk.

       "Second-hand information," Zell piped in order to distance himself from the argument.

       Squall decided that it might be more expeditious for his escape to humor Quistis rather than convince her that she was wrong.  _Prodigy or not, they should have left her at the orphanage_.

       Thinking quickly and looking her straight in the eyes, he hypothesized, "If Seifer was honestly trying to penetrate Nova Trabia Garden via subterranean route, and if he has had all the time that you say he's had, then he would have broken in already."

       At that moment, a large section of the floor beneath them ruptured and gave way.  The three officers snapped to attention and instinctively reached for their weapons.  Squall felt the rush of air blow across his face and the clutter of sedimentary granules settle over his hair.

       "What in Eden-"

       Quistis' exclamation trailed off in ambivalent anticipation of what the veil of jetsam might reveal to be its cause once settled.  She noted the awkward knot that suddenly took hold of her stomach.  Despite the unexpected tumult, she felt a strange sense of familiarity in the tension in the air.  Bothered, she tightened her grip around the whip handle.

       As the three of them found themselves engulfed more and more in a small penumbra of dust and powder thrown up from the sinkhole, Squall began to feel grungy.  He made a note to wash his hair for the third time that day.  The cost for the supply of shampoo he planned to extract in full from the offender.

       Zell could hear that a crowd of students had begun to pour into the corridor ahead of them, having been stirred by the loud rumble that had accompanied the collapse of the flooring.  He could also vaguely discern a peppery Rishi trying to elbow her way to the front past the static clump of bodies that had gathered under the archway.  Finding her attempts frustrated, the mass too thick to penetrate, she tried jumping up and down to gain sporadic peeks over the shoulders of impeding classmates.  Every now and then he spied her head surface from the uniform line of nameless faces, just as quickly disappearing back into the throng each time.  Sergeant Jay had also reappeared among the ranks and did succeed in making his way to the front.

       The dust finally cleared and revealed a circular chasm spanning the width of the hall…and a few seconds later, also the silhouettes of the three people inside it.

       "Stars of Gilgamesh!" Quistis gasped when she recognized the blonde male at the head of the pack.

       Squall recognized him as well, but forced himself to take a second to survey the totality of the scene, in compliance to section 4.2 line 7 of the SeeD manual of operations.  He noticed that the hole in the ground was actually closer to the neglected file storage room than to the officer's lounge.  It was the same space where the movers had apathetically cached overstock microfilm and texts decades old that no one ever bothered to transfer into the computer network databases.

       _What in Diablos is he looking for?_ Squall wondered.

       The dust-covered man in his torn white coat was hissing expletives at the taller and more tanned of his two accomplices, though under the powder they appeared equally pale and gray.  Had the former been unpinned and had more complete use of his legs, he would undoubtedly have tried to kick the latter.

       Upon seeing Leonhart and company, his eyes narrowed and he assumed an expression of unsmirched smugness.

       "I think we must have missed a ramp," Seifer Almasy teased the wordless SeeD Commander.  "I was supposed to get off at the last exit."

       "W-what are _you_ doing here?" Quistis demanded shakily.  _I hate how my premonitions are always right._

       The subsequent sigh that escaped from Seifer's lips was indiscernible as being either real or feigned. 

       "This is the scene where you declare your undying hatred for me," he added, clearly addressed to Squall.

       Quistis paled another two shades.  _That line had added meaning._

       Zell scowled and looked over questioningly at Squall.  _Give me the signal to sic him._

       Nothing from the commander.

       Unable to solicit any reaction from Leonhart, Seifer decided to switch tactics and personas.

       "Don't just to any conclusions about the storage room, fellas," he lied, deciding the best ruse would be the slight distortion of the truth.  "We were just hunting down some antique issues of 'Girl Next Door'."

       "Even Fuujin?" Zell scoffed skeptically.  "And besides, I already traded them to Zone for Triple Triad Shiva cards, you dip-wad."  _All the friends and classmates of mine you've killed with Galbadian resources and you're still this cocky?_

       _That was rather quick for Zell_, Quistis noted mentally.

       Seifer decided to try another play-act.

       "I'm…seeking…medical…attention," he appealed to Squall in between histrionically labored breaths.  "I'm pretty sure it's covered by the company's health policy."

      Gun-blade still clinched in hand, Leonhart crossed his arms and pronounced frigidly, "You forget; you don't work here anymore.  Get out."

       Quistis and Zell both turned to Squall and stared at him in penultimate disbelief.

       "What?" Quistis exclaimed. "Squall, enemy or not, he's wounded and deserves treatment!"

       "What?" Zell shouted simultaneously over Quistis' voice.  "You're just going to let him go without beating him up!?"  _After all the times he has tried to kill us?_

       Behind Seifer, a soot-smudged Fuujin let out a controlled groan and flexed her arm sorely.  Besides her, Raijin whimpered and coughed.  Two arms' length away from Seifer there lied a flashy Kris-style blade, so broad that Squall doubted if there was even a need to use the trigger part of the multifaceted weapon.  Most noticeable were the lavish etchings of dragons on the side of its hilt.  He had not seen that style of gun-blade in any of the 'Weapons Monthly' magazines, which obviated the possibility that any blacksmiths in the region would know how to fashion a duplicate.

       Squall looked back and forth between Zell and Quistis, unsure of which extreme to pursue.  He spared a moment to look at Rishi who was biting on her thumbnail nervously and at the mixed expressions of all the trainees around her.  Hardened and soft aspects were pretty much split evenly down the middle.  At this point, it was clearly futile to resort to popular opinion.  It would all rest on his unilateral executive judgment call.

       Seifer smiled innocently at Zell and said of the wreckage, "Don't you worry.  I'll clean this up and have it looking spanking new in no time, Chicken-wuss."

       _Oaf!  _Quistis winced internally.  It was as if Seifer was daring for someone to clobber him.

       Both Zell and Squall stared hard, fists clenched and jaws cast in iron.

       Between them the air felt like it was going to snap.

       _To Diablos with it! _ Zell decided.  _You're in my playground now._

       Without so much as cracking his knuckles to indicate that he was coming, the SeeD boxer lounged at the intruder.  His punch was set to land in Seifer's jugular.

       Snap!

       "Huh?" Zell exclaimed.

       He looked back to see what was stopping his hand and saw Quistis' whip wrapped around his wrist.  She met his half-accusing, half-hurt glare with guilt tantamount, but still braced her full weight in opposition to his maneuver.  The more Zell struggled against her, the harder she pulled to meet him.

       "I always knew you had a soft spot for me, Instructor," Seifer spoke first.

       "Shut up, Seifer," she snapped venomously.  "And I'm not your instructor anymore."  _I'm not anyone's instructor anymore._

       "You're not anyone's instructor anymore," he reminded her mockingly.  _Lest you forget I was your last student._

       Zell was still trying furiously to pounce on Seifer.  As far as she could discern, he was aiming for a killing blow to the neck.  Strength nearly spent and realizing that she would not be able to hold him off for much longer, Quistis turned her head towards Squall and searched him desperately for some sign of arbitration.  _Please, Squall, set a good example for the new wave of cadets._

       The SeeD commander's expression read a dark cloud.

       Raijin gritted his teeth nervously, only to find the taste of blood in his mouth, and felt a missing space in the top row.

       Fuujin was on the verge of relapsing into conniptions from the pain all over her body.  _ There are probably bruises on my teeth._

       Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Zell heard his name from behind him.

       "Hold it, Zell."

       It was Squall's order.

       To everyone's shock, the commander then dusted his SeeD uniform off with a few pats and remarked aloofly to his arch-nemesis, "You're not worth my time."

       Zell's mouth hung open in full display of the crass and Quistis' taut whip slackened to a disbelieving droop.

       "You're not even worth a Med Kit," Squall added after the briefest of pauses for a verbal sting he knew would survive for a lifetime.  _Burn in hell, Seifer.  Some day, I know you will._

       Regaining his usual commander-caliber composure, Squall told Quistis to call staff security down immediately.  He made a point not to send for any medical units for on-site emergency inspections.  However, the three trespassers were to be referred to the infirmary for Dr. Kadowaki to treat within the next five minutes.  Seifer's parole officer informed of the flagrant prima facie violation within two minutes.

      At this point Quistis interrupted, pulling him aside where their words would not overheard by the population of students present.

       "Squall," she began nervously, "I know I might have undermined the integrity of the chain of command in Garden with that last public display of conflict of authority, but Seifer-"

       "Get back in character, 'Quis'," Squall broke her off acerbically with the deliberate choice of the diminutive childhood sobriquet to cast a condescending air over her Headmistress-ship.  "I'm the one who runs the missions here; your job is to clean up the playground when recess is over."

       He shook her hand off of his arm violently.  "Understand!?"

       She looked away angrily.  _No!  No!  No!_

       "Take a look at all the students who witnessed this just now.  This is Trabia, for Hyne's sake!  How many of their friends and families were left homeless or killed because of him?" Squall resisted the urge to shake her by her SeeD uniform collar out of professional courtesy but hissed in her ear.  "We let Seifer off light, and when the word gets around, I'm going to get the heat for it, not you, Headmistress Trepe."

       No tempered tactic seemed to be working, so Quistis resorted to a more _ad hominem _approach.

       "What would your father think?" she coaxed without meeting his eyes.

       "My father wasn't the paradigm voice of conscience, and you don't need to be mine," he replied.

       Squall grabbed Sergeant Jay from behind her and directed him to secure the area with what hands they had on site.  He then ordered a courier to send word to Instructor Tilmitt about getting a construction crew down to the first floor to repair the damages.

       "You all have your orders," the commander huffed and dismissed them hurriedly.  Anxiously he took a split-second to check his watch.  _Diablos take this!_

       Zell leaned against the cold metal wall and rubbed his right wrist gingerly.  Had it not been for his glove, the whip might have torn up multiple epidermal layers.

       "Squall," Quistis bravely urged again, "this isn't how we should handle it."  _Now that I think about it, though, how else _could_ we handle this?_

       The answer to her plea was only too obvious.

       "Whatever," he shot back as if it had were an automated response.  _Do whatever you want._

       Turning on his heel, he stormed off towards the locker room in the adjacent hall.

       Zell's blinked twice in rapid succession, having witnessed the flurry of happenings that seemed to have blazed by him.  _Did that just happen?_

       Quistis read his look and nodded tentatively, though it could just have easily been read as an answer for the negative, shaking her head at the awful scene before her.  She could not have known how high her eyebrows were arching, the entire countenance of shocked incredulity having been provoked by Squall's unanticipated reaction.

       _After all Seifer put us through_, Quistis remonstrated, eyes flashing as a whirlwind of possible explanations raced through her head, _I doubt even someone as phlegmatic as Squall could have repressed the desire for a quick and painless reprisal.  And yet he chose to walk away from it.  It happened!  I saw it!  What is going on?_

_       He has to be hiding something_, Trepe concluded naturally.__

       Her eyes narrowed.  _Or someone._

_       Rinoa?_

       Zell finally picked his jaw off the floor and sped after the commander, calling out to Squall to wait for him.  The request was grudgingly granted.  Just as Zell sprinted across the intersection between two perpendicular corridors to where his colleague was waiting, a silver-haired girl with pink irises poked her head out from around the corner curiously and surveyed the commotion still going on outside the officer's lounge.  Zell squinted at her and tried to recall why she looked so familiar.

_       Where do I know her from? _he wondered.

       Squall noticed his peculiar expression and followed his gaze.  When he found her, she struck him oddly enough as someone he'd met before as well.

       "Pearl?" Zell murmured tentatively.  The mental spark plug tried over and over to light itself, refusing to remain an inconsequential fizzle.

       Suddenly the mechanism snapped to life: She was the girl who had simply showed up one day looking for her allegedly missing friend!

       The two SeeD officers exchanged looks and then turned their glances back to their curious visitor, but by then she had disappeared into the crowd, eager to see what all the stir was about.

       Squall shook his head severely and let out a vexed sigh.  There was something wrong about the situation, detected facilely enough by the uneasiness he felt within.  His gut instincts were seldom wrong.

       "Blast it, Pandemona!" the Level A SeeD cursed and then continued on his way to the changing room.  Some things were just more important.  It wasn't that he was walking away from his responsibilities, but if he'd be damned if he was going to have to personally handle every lost girl scout in Garden _and_ command their highly regimented martial body to boot.  A leadership position that he hadn't asked for was punishment enough.  He thought humorlessly how the karma from his past life had finally caught up with him.

       _Jay will handle it_, he reassured himself as he found his locker.  999, the highest-numbered compartment they had.

       "Leonhart, Squ-" he spoke into the voice-lock-identifer's receiver.

       "Hey, Squall," Zell burst in, "can you believe what just hap-"

       His voice trailed off punctually when Squall shot him a glare after a little red light on the mini-panel lit up and access was denied to him.

       "Leonhart, Squall," he tried again, still eyeing Zell.  This time the ungarbled input registered successfully and the locker door popped ajar.

       Dry-mouthed, the blonde SeeD tried swallowing and succeeded only with upper-level difficulty.

       Squall ignored him and changed out of his black SeeD uniform back into plain dark clothes.  He rolled up his orange t-shirt into a bundle and tucked it under his arm.

       As Squall slammed his locker door shut, he noticed that Zell was still trying to say something.  _He hasn't he left yet?_

       "What?" he demanded.  _Is it too much to hope that it might actually be something important this time?_

       "You're not going to press and fold them?" Zell inquired, raising an eyebrow.  _It's out of character for him to deviate even the slightest bit from his hard-set habits._

       Squall shook his head.  He didn't have enough time to perform his fastidious, quotidian ritual of ironing his uniform today.  Between Quistis' harangue and Seifer's intrusion, he calculated that he had lost about four minutes and twenty seconds.  It seemed like forever.  She would grow upset soon if he didn't get out to the quad and pick her up.  He estimated that it wouldn't take her longer than another two minutes to begin wondering if he had stood her up…for the third time this past week, and have an irate, nameless, beautiful blue-haired menace to answer to.

       In a rare moment of weariness, Squall rubbed his temples.  _It is always something.  Something _always _comes up.  I bet she's probably used to it by now._

       Zell was flabbergasted, unable to comprehend what that never-before-seen sign of fatigue meant.  He was surely the only person in contemporary history to witness the mere suggestion that the first seams of the stonewall had begun to unravel.  It was common knowledge in the public domain that Squall's sangfroid was akin to chain-mail armor.

       Something about the way Zell was gawking at him reminded him of Ellone.  Squall looked to the side for a half-second and made a mental note to check up on her.  It had been so long since he had last seen his foster-sister, or god-sister, or whatever relation she was to him.  Instinctively he reached over to his opposite hand to feel his ring.  When he did not find it on his finger, his hand moved up to his throat, expecting to find it dangling on his chain necklace.  When both attempts were frustrated, Squall looked down and realized what he had been doing subconsciously.

_       Wake up, Squall! he censured himself for silliness.__  Of course I don't have Griever on me; I told Rinoa to keep it._

       In retrospect, he regretted the decision.  For so long he hadn't been feeling quite like himself without it ubiquitously at hand to guide him.  After Ellone gave it to him she had promptly disappeared.  The ring naturally assumed the character of moral authority in the vacuum that she'd left by her pitiless departure.  A decade later she would seem innately handicapped by immaturity, but at the time she was everything he wanted to be and be with when he grew up.  And he would finally grow up on that day when he suddenly realized that the ring fit him perfectly.  Putting it on, he felt as though his entire being had changed, as if he had stepped through the transitional threshold from one life to another.

       Something occurred to him.

       "Zell," he said, looking back at Zell, "if you still have the mold for my Griever ring from that time when you made Rinoa a copy, could you fashion one that would fit me?"

       Zell scowled, thinking hard, and finally shook his head.

       "I had to modify the mold to accommodate Rinoa's finger size," he answered.  "I can make you a slightly miniaturized copy of it like the one she has if you want, though."

       Squall nodded and replied, "That will have to do then.  Hope it won't be too much trouble."

       "No trouble," Zell chirped back.  "I was looking for an excuse to fire up the forge and upgrade these Ehrgeiz gloves anyway.  You've seen the 'Weapons Monthly' September issue, right?"

       Tasks completed and points made, Squall excused himself without answering the question and hurried to the door with brisk but nonetheless dignified strides.

       "Have you heard from Rinoa?" Zell ventured to inquire.  He sighed, having finally gotten out of his chest the question he'd been wanting to ask all morning.

       Squall shook his head, keeping his stride.  It had been over a week since she had last sent him the exhaustive quotidian bundle of eighteen back-to-back mushy voice messages.

       "Oh, one more thing," Zell eased in before he reached the door, "her name is Merali."

       Squall tensed up and stopped dead in his tracks.  Turning back, the Commander shot his fellow SeeD an inquisitive look.

       "You think I'm BS-ing, don't you?" Zell prodded, flashing an unguent grin.  It was the first smile flashed since the unwelcome appearance of the posse.

       Squall thought it better not to question the integrity of the information in light of his current tardiness that was distending with each passing second.

       "Okay," he registered with a tentative nod, and then exited the locker room from the side door that led to the parking garage.  In the background, Zell interjected a few 'Booya!'s and pumped his fist in the air.

       After entering the garage, Squall would take his A09 Galbadian military motorbike to gateway connector ramp that opened out onto the Quad where she'd be leaning on the railing by the steps and expecting him.

       As always he had parked it on the far side of the lot towards the exit, but it met him halfway, Squall having activated the auto-ignition, autopilot, and key-holder auto-find with the radio remote on his key chain.

       Zell ground his upper and lower teeth together as the SeeD Commander slid smoothly into his bike seat and started the engine.  Squall sat back, braced himself for the jerk of precipitous acceleration, and raced up the exit ramp with the authoritative screech of burnt rubber over concrete.

       What couldn't distance change?  Watching him go was like losing Mina all over again.  How he could stand by and watch Squall lose Rinoa reflected and magnified his own glaring error, indelible because it happened the past, and unforgettable because the resulting pain was etched in his heart.  How much longer would it be until Rinoa walked out on him just like Mina had done at the post-Time-Compression Balamb Garden ball, if she hadn't made her exit already?  They were all fools.

       A minute later, Zell snapped out of his daze and stuck his outstretched hand back into his pocket, having meant to keep someone but to no avail.  Air was the only thing that one couldn't hold onto for dear life.

       Squall found Merali exactly as he had imagined, leaning over the railing by the marble Quad steps with her chin resting on her palm, her angelic head held in a soft caress that matched the gentleness of her white skirt and blue-green blouse.  She looked perfectly harmless.  Regrettably Squall feared that her imminent ire would soon belie that cherub image and dispel any remnant fantasies he had about heaven.

       He sucked in his breath when she caught sound of his stentorian engine and cocked her head ever so slightly as to peer at his arrival.

       With a bemused poker-face that was too early to read, the attendee nonchalantly clapped her hands together and shoved at the railing with her wrists so as to push her back upright.  The amount of effort it took her suggested to Squall that she had been leaning against the bar for quite some time.

       She rubbed her wrists tenderly and strolled over to where he remained mounted with the engine running.  Something about her muteness had told him not to shut it off.

       Eventually she moved alongside his motorcycle, but instead of hopping on, she studied his face intently.  For the millionth time that week, he couldn't look away.

       _Is it gnawing on you too?_ Her sad eyes seemed to say.

       It could have been interpreted a malevolent rub towards a guilt trip.

       _I'm sorry_, he might have answered.

       She climbed into the seat behind him and wrapped her hands around his sides.  Safely situated, she squeezed his ribs slightly and he clapped his helmet visor down in acknowledgment.  He would have gotten out the matching jet-black passenger helmet from the bike's storage compartment and offered it to her had she not acculturated him to the vanity of the gesture.  She had inexplicably developed an acute adversity to wearing helmets after the first ride he had given her back to Garden from the beach on that fateful morning of their meeting.  Was it really that hard to breathe with the visor down at 200 kilometers per hour?

       He gave the bike some juice, turned the vehicle on a dime, and kicked up a small dust cloud in the process of jetting out of the Quad, out of the Garden, and sooner than soon, out of sight.

       A slender silhouette formed presently against the veil of dust, breaking out of which was none other than Quistis, trying intently to wave them down.

       "Wait!" she cried, a shout that seemed to reach out a lifetime too late.  _Come back…_

       The Headmistress leaned over, resting her hands on either knee, and panted heavily.  More blood than oxygen was rushing to her head, the latter of which was what she needed.  She put her head between her legs to ease the flow and felt the after-burn sink into her calves.

       She had traversed the lobby twice going from the Garage to the Quad in an attempt to catch him.  The taxing sprint only took two and a half minutes, which ought to have been a new track record.

       But it had not been good enough.

       She had not been good enough.  She had lost him to Rinoa.  She had willingly sacrificed her coveted, prestigious SeeD instructor's position just so she could be with him without transgressing regulation, and still, she had lost him to her.

       She had lost him to the enemy, their new enemy.  _The_ enemy.  To think that the sole purpose of Garden was to defy a single woman!  They were only mercenaries for hire on the side to pay the bills; out of expedience they sold out their ethics.  It had been in her mind for quite some time that the entire SeeD program had a rather myopic focus.

       _Infatuation makes for a rather myopic focus as well_, Quistis considered morosely.  _Love would do that to you.  Tunnel vision.  You can't see anything but the light that you believe is at the end of the tunnel, and there is no turning back._

       Was there no turning back from SeeD either?  What was SeeD?  What was the glamorous aim, the noble purpose, the lofty goal?  There had to be at least one redeeming virtue in the institution.  Quistis struggled in vain to find one, and had immense difficulty even in falsifying one.  She considered everything from the internecine battle of Galbadia and Balamb Gardens, to the redounding travesty of Squall's role in his relationship with Rinoa as either the lover who was supposed to take her home or the SeeD Commander who was supposed to take her life.  Quistis even considered the unfinished, derelict contract that obligated them to assist the Forest Owls resistance group in liberating Timber from the oppressive Galbadian government.  Even with President Deling dead and the country's administrative powers in disorder, Timber's autonomy was still far from realization and a formidable task certainly too large for Watts and the sex-crazed, stomach-crippled Zone to handle on their own.

       The fogginess of her memory she attributed to the interference from her Guardian Forces.  It seemed so long ago that it all happened; they had not been more than Level 20 fighters in experience when they were contracted, a great contrast with their present Level 99, demi-god, Hero statuses with the most powerful weapons and magic stock in the world.

       _But even so, what _good_ are we? _Quistis considered ambivalently.  _A life devoted to repeated assassination attempts – when we fail, we try again, and if we succeed, there will just be another sorceress the next day to fight._

       The defeat of one sorceress meant that her powers would be passed to the next lucky beneficiary.  It was an endless cycle.  Hyne seemed to have designed the timeline of the world so that in every age, at any given time, there would be one and only one sorceress.  They would never be free from them.

       _Maybe SeeDs aren't supposed to ever win_, she reflected glumly.  _Maybe we are just supposed to keep the sorceress in check eternally_.

       How tedious and pointless it all was!  Nothing would ever change, and they were condemned to live in a perpetual state of war.  She might as well start her own orphanage like Cid Kramer did and raise orphans to do the fighting for in her stead.

       Quistis clenched her fists tightly and shook her head.  

       There _had_ to be more meaning to life than this.

      She had walked herself through the same logic game countless times: If the Great Hyne used to be contained within the world, then She could not have been above and beyond it.  Hyne was one of them then, just another snowflake to be shaken up inside the crystal ball.  When she couldn't fall asleep, Quistis would stay awake in bed and wonder what was Primal Cause had introduced Hyne into the world, and why It had removed Her.

       _What is out there?_ for the longest time she yearned to know.  _What out is there?_

       It had taken her months and this moment to figure out that she wanted out.

       Quistis stopped trying to look through the trees beyond the Garden gates.  Squall was probably miles away by now.

       Head drooping, Trepe reached over to the left side of her black SeeD uniform and tore the Headmistress insignia off the breast pocket.  Almost lifelessly she let it fall from her hand and settle on the dirt path.  She placed her heel over it and felt the colossal difference in the weight she no longer carried.  She didn't feel half as tired anymore.

       Quistis turned and headed back up the Quad steps with a mind to resign her position as the Nova Trabia Headmistress.  It was the only chance she had at ever walking away from this part of her life, to purge herself of this failed experiment known as youth.  Her superior, the Balamb Garden Headmaster Cid Kramer, was only a call away.

       Half-hidden behind the crocketed pinnacles crowning the altitudinous gable of the gothic archway between the Quad and the atrium, a caped figure watched the blonde beauty's movements with great interest.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters. Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible? Thanks in advance.


	32. Setting 28: 1838 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Gar...

Setting 28: 1838 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Garden Quad 

_"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art..._

_It has no survival value; rather _

_it is one of those things that give value to survival."_

-Lewis, C. S.

In Friendship 

       _H_e had but to call out to her.  He hadn't been more than an arrow's flight away.

       And yet, between the height of the sun that noon and the chronic ache from his still healing chest wound, there was not a modicum of incentive in the entirety of his body for him to do that.  The orphan amongst orphans simply could not be bothered to scoot more than three inches in any direction from where he had planted himself.

      With a lazy nod from his head Match beckoned for her to rejoin him on the comfortable patch of grass, but she shook her head, purposely, he thought, just to piss him off.

       Bringing her to this canopied glade at the heart of Hodmimir's Forest had been a mistake.  Hers was a spirit incompatible to the serenity that the quaintly static ambience offered.  It was a curious shelter of foliage that he had accidentally stumbled upon in the "Shawl's Stone" countryside during his desultory, pre-engagement vagrancy.  Overhead the circular ring of shrubbery admitted a single golden stream of light, the one welcome intruder from the fenced off outside world, perfectly picturesque and virtually inviolable, all while retaining its all-naturalness, which was not altogether something easy to do.

       But apparently she wasn't a big fan of sitting.  Her non-stop movement from place to place was as sprightly as her attention was capricious.  Her life seemed too short to spend it being stationary.

       Annoyed with her deliberate noncompliance, he released a disgusted sigh and lied back down, placing both hands behind his head to cushion it.  It was somewhat risky to open his shoulders so wide because he could never be sure about how far he might be able to stretch him arms before they would being tearing at his injured pectoral muscles.  

       Unconcerned about his condition or merely oblivious to it, Sujie hopped on top of him, knocking the wind out of him and forcing him to shrink into a defensive, fetal, cringing position with a sharp and startled, "Umph!"

       A brief sensation of pain shot through him, recalling to his mind the feeling she introduced to him when she drove the dagger into his body.  It couldn't have missed his heart by more than a hair's length.  Had he been doped up on extra-strength valium in conjunction with half a dozen other anesthetic medicines, it might have felt more like a pinprick than a serrated stalactite, but that was obviously too much to hope for.

       Match had heard of Curaga spells that could heal wounds instantaneously, but he didn't have a Guardian Force of his own to show him how to draw and wield magic.  He had been on his own since as far back as he could remember.  He never had a guardian, legal or supernatural.

       Without apologizing, Sujie proceeded to straddle his waist and then leaned down to snuggle against him, plaintively nudging her soft cheeks into the temporary cavity between his ribcage and upper arm.  In that position, it was hard not to notice what she was wearing in her hair.  After all, it was practically in his face – the cryo-frozen chrysanthemum he had given her she had her fashion designers specially mount onto a hairpiece that was now an indispensable part of her daily wardrobe.  Everything else in her outfit seemed to revolve around this ornamental tiara and underscore its charm.

       He decided not to chastise her for pouncing on his stitched wound, but grunted to signal his displeasure.  In acknowledgment she grunted back in the same masculine octave.

       "Isn't it about time you washed this?" she asked a moment later without looking up.  She was referring to the blotches of bloodstain that covered his grungy shirt.  Mischievously Sujie took a peek under it and poked at the unraveling carapace of bandages beneath.

       "I'm too lazy," he answered and fiddled with her hair.

       "Then hand it to me and I'll wash it for you," she suggested eagerly.

       "I'm too lazy to do even that," he replied.

       "Pig," she mouthed disgustedly and tossed her hair back to where he wouldn't be able to reach it.

       "Runt," he shot back with an irritated look.

       She made a face and then, sitting up, tried to swat him, but he caught her hand and to her pleasant astonishment pulled her down closer to him.  In the millisecond before his lips moved over hers, Sujie wondered if she had made the right decision in running away with him before his body had fully healed.  It was a lesser concern that she might never see her father again, or that half of the "Shawl's Stone" county constables were looking for them – her to bring back to the Duke's palace and him to shoot on sight.  After all, she had a new crown now, and one that she fancied above all others, even if they were studded with all the rarest gems in the world, simply because he had given it to her.

       _I should probably change his bandages soon_, she considered right before she closed her eyes and felt her world melt into a slightly wet, white and gold-painted heaven.

       _Why did you have to kiss me?  You shouldn't have.  Why?  Why? _her thoughts echoed inaudibly into nothing in their togetherness.

       "You shouldn't have!" he exclaimed with a surprised look.

       Yumey blushed and looked down at her pink toenails.

       "Why?" Seifer prodded her, wondering if she would ever look up into his eyes without feeling embarrassed.  In his hands he held with fascination the complete Ribbon that she had sewn for him out of the lace blindfold that he didn't even know she kept from their first date on the beach three weeks before.  She had been thorough from the looks of the Ribbon quality.  _Better than any GF refining ability, that's for sure_.

       "So I can keep this?" he asked her.

       She nodded.  _It was yours to begin with_.

       He smiled slyly in afterthought and joked, "And I can keep you?"

       She blushed even deeper.  _YES!  YES!_

Yumey turned away quickly and walked further down the hidden path into what the local map indicated as Hodmimir's Forest.  _I was yours to begin with too_.

       Somewhat confused by her response, Seifer marveled at the Ribbon for a moment longer before tucking it away in his coat pocket and following after her into the dense undergrowth.__

       After the initial rejection he suffered by her hand on the beach, he had forgotten about the blindfold.  She in turn had forgotten about giving it back to him.  When it occurred to him later that it was missing, he looked all about his A08-Series Galbadian Motorbike and eventually concluded that it was lost for good.  The reality was not easy to accept and he had sulked for a full week over the loss.  The Ribbon lace had been the only thing of even remote sentimental value that his father left him besides a truckload of Gil that was wisely invested in Estharian stocks and a portfolio full of high-paying Galbadian Government Army bonds.  Sporadic expenditures on over-the-top luxuries such as the motorbike was made possible by the proceeds from the stocks alone.  However, the Ribbon he could not buy anywhere.  There were no mail-order catalogs for Almasy family heirlooms.

       _Or should I say, the Shojora family heirloom_, Seifer corrected himself, _since Almasy was just my mother's maiden name_?

       In his fourteenth year, training at Balamb Garden had become intensive, and so Seifer's request for temporary leave to attend Shojora's military funeral had been denied.  It was no real wonder that Cid would refuse because Seifer never revealed the truth about his parentage, and the death of a benefactor was a distant second to a death in the family by stringent Garden standards.  The secret training he had been permitted to receive three out of the seven days of the week in Galbadia was also discontinued.  A Ribbon lace stuffed in a crude manila envelope had been the sole memento in an otherwise bountiful inheritance, symbolic of all the good-byes that were never said and of an anonymous father who could never be acknowledged.

       "Seifer," Yumey's voice interrupted his thoughts.  "Are we going the right way?"

       "I don't know," he answered honestly.  "I've never been to 'Shawl's Stone' before."

       "Neither have I," huffed Yumey wearily.  "How did you find out about this place?"

       "I read about it in the first volume of 'Occult Fan' back in the Balamb Garden library," Seifer explained.  "I had to wait for hours before that stupid pig-tailed girl got out of the way so that I could reach it on the bookshelf."

       "I can't wait," she mused.

       From behind, Seifer was painstakingly trying to maneuver through thicket without brushing his coat across any branches or rub it against the tree bark at close quarters.

_       No stain, no pain_, he kept in mind.

       "Sometimes I think you take more care of your white coat then you do of me," Yumey commented lightly.

       "It's freaking expensive to have it cleaned professionally," Seifer informed her.  "Are you jealous?"

       She smiled knowingly but made no answer.  She could see the light from the clearing just a little ahead of them.

       She tired to list all the reasons she had come up with three weeks earlier that had served to pick apart her resolve.  She must have recited everything that was wonderful about him to herself a million times, memorizing them by heart, backwards and forwards, before dispelling all her doubts, suspicions, insecurities, and misgivings and finally convincing herself to let him into her life and to live the past weeks as if they were the last three weeks of her life.  She knew she would hate herself if she did, but in order to love him, she had ventured to suffer her own hate.

       With minimum rustle, she walked through the last partition of enshrouding leaves and found herself dipping into a flood of halcyon sunlight.  Immediately she noticed two lovers lying together in the center of the enclosed glade, chatting in their own language.

       "Oh!" exclaimed Yumey, brightening up sufficiently.  "There are people here.  Let's go greet them!"

       "That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard," Seifer remarked.  "One would hardly call that a necessity.  Besides, they probably want some privacy."

       Yumey gave him a knowing look and let go of his hand.

       "You still don't understand a thing about us," she mouthed, and began walking towards the couple.

       To retaliate, Seifer muttered something lewd in her direction, taking a certain satisfaction in seeing her stiffen slightly at his scandalous suggestion.

       From their place on the grass, Sujie had spotted first a teenage girl step into the garden, leading by hand a second figure who gradually emerged from the circumscribing trees.

       The sight of the cute couple holding hands inspired a sunny smile across her face.

       "That's my boyfriend over there, from a previous life," Sujie whispered to Match, trying to make him jealous.

       As if automated, Match grunted in response, keeping his eyes closed.

       She wondered if he had even been listening to her.

       "Does that vex you?" she tested him.

       Determined not to let her usual antics spoil his mid-afternoon nap, he made another noise _in lieu_ of answering.

       "Are you vexed, knowing that I have another lover?" Sujie asked.

       He grunted again.

       "No, you're not!" she whined and started to attack him.  "You're supposed to be very vexed!"

       "I will be if you keep shoving me," he finally grumbled.  _Notaque insana mens et ea pendeant…_

       Sujie pouted for a little bit, decided it was futile, and then leaned down close to his ear and nipped it.  He shook out of his play-coma in surprise and she giggled hysterically.

       Seeing that the other girl was drawing close, Sujie stood up and brushed a few homeless blades of grass from her skirt.  Afterwards she none-too-discreetly looked her visitor up and down before finally sizing her up as being a colleague of respectable birth.  Taking the initiative with assurance, then, she politely introduced herself.

       "Hello, there.  I'm Sujie."

       With that, she moved forward and brushed a stray strand of hair away from Yumey's face to behind her ear, subsequently placing a gentle kiss on the other girl's forehead.

       Yumey reciprocated by giving her name and repeating the two gestures of brushing Sujie's hair back and kissing her, thus completing the Galbadian greeting ritual between women in the upper-echelon social circles.

       Out of courtesy, the man lazily sprawled on the ground made a move to get up.

       "Try that same greeting on me and I'll cut off your arm," Seifer threatened him semi-seriously, brandishing the Hyperion gun-blade peeking out from under his coat.  As if on cue, it gleamed menacingly.

       The humorous caveat managed to solicit a contemptuous snort from Match, a giggle from Sujie, and a disapproving nudge from Yumey.

       "Judging from your accent, you don't seem to have been raised in Galbadia," Sujie addressed Seifer with a half-quizzical, half-curious glance.

       "I'm from Balamb Garden," Seifer elucidated and stood up slightly straighter.

       "We're from the capital," Yumey cut in, hoping to take control of their side of the conversation before Seifer committed another _faux pas_. 

       "From Deling City!" Sujie affirmed with a understanding smile.  She clapped her hands together as if knowing their origin pleased her immensely.

       _She's certainly a maudlin one_, Seifer analyzed critically.

       Reading his disapproving expression, Yumey elbowed him.

       "So what are you doing here in 'Shawl's Stone'?" the other girl.

       "It was his idea," Yumey answered with a shrug.

       Both ladies directed their questioning gazes towards Seifer.

       "Can we speak somewhere more private?" Seifer urged Yumey plaintively and, taking her forearm, tried to usher her aside.

       "Oh, we're not here," Sujie quickly pretended, pointing at Match and herself.

       Match rolled his eyes.  _Ibidem_.

       Yumey searched Seifer's pale face curiously, putting her hand over his to give him reassurance.  The situation was rare, and perhaps unique.  She had never seen him so hesitant, or hesitant at all.

       "Honey," she asked him softly, "what is it?"

       "I-I had something I wanted to tell you," stammered Seifer with difficulty.

       "You're not going to propose are you?" Sujie blurted out.  _Holy Shiva!  Pop the question!  Pop the question!_

       Yumey reacted quickly, looking up at his face with her startled eyes glistening in the hope that it might be true.  _He's going to take me with him!_

The irises of the truest Galbadian blue moistened.  _He's not leaving me!_

A torrent of exhilarations and thoughts blew over her.  _We aren't over.  We won't be over!  We'll always be together!_

She was bathed for the first time in infinite relief since she met him.  _We won't end like I feared!_

       There seemed nothing more that she would ever have to worry about.  The locked door had been thrown open and she had stepped out into a fresh, horizon-less future.

       Sujie was biting on her lower lip and looked over at Match gleefully, scarcely able to contain her excitement but not wanting to disturb Yumey's moment.

       Match closed his eyes, his visage expressing ambivalence, though he was dreading the possibility.  _Dude, don't set a bad example and weigh me down with another expectation in front of Sujie._

To his relief, the man in the white jacket shook his head, his face reddening a few shades_._

       "This place has a name.  People call it the 'Garden of Good-byes'," murmured the swordsman softly.  "Only lovers can come here, and having been here, part their own ways."

       She was deathly silent.  A dead stare ahead into a space beyond space cast an eerie umbrage over the heart of the garden.

       Seifer hadn't anticipated this.  The scenarios he had beforehand gone through in his head all included her demanding the meaning of his bringing her here in one form or another.  The symbolism for the inevitable reality that they had been skirting and ducking for the past three weeks of blissful, irresponsible elopement had rammed her straight-on like a freight train emerging from a dark tunnel.  Whether he had been the train conductor or the one who had pushed her onto the train tracks was uncertain and probably unimportant.  They both amounted to the same thing: He was going to leave her in pieces.

       Unsure of what to do, he moved towards her as if to take her up in his arms and comfort her.

       Snapping to life, Yumey pushed him away violently and began to make her abashed exit.

       Seifer instinctively lifted his hand to try to stay her, but she pushed him away for a second time and, turning, ran out of the underbrush in untamed tears.

       Beside them, Sujie had uncomfortably witnessed the whole state of affairs.  As Yumey fled from the scene, Sujie gathered herself up, shot Seifer a dirty look, and then rushed off after the sobbing girl.  The nasty, accusatory facial expression that he would never forget seemed to say, "Congratulations, you son of a bitch.  You destroyed an angel."

       Match sat up when he heard the sound of fleeting feet and trampled grass.  Realizing that he didn't actually want Sujie to leave his side, he reached out, only to grasp wisps of air in her stead.  _Hey, wait a second!_

       Neither of them moved for a matter of minutes, trapped in utter speechlessness, both of them dumbfounded, open-mouthed, and barely comprehending.  _Come back…_

       He had but to call out to her.  He hadn't been more than an arrow's flight away.  But she was purposefully ignoring him that day because he had forgotten to sing her a song on her birthday two nights before.  Making a delivery in the southern hemisphere of _Terra_ and sending a well-wishing birthday card in his stead hadn't nearly been enough.  The distance that her barricading cold shoulder had set up between them must have extended for miles, even though she was busying herself with her Geiger counter right in front of his eyes.

       It had to have been some time later, perhaps after a whole year had passed, since they visited the glade in Hodmimir's Forest.

       Match glanced around without the slightest interest in his environs.  Plundering sacked sites for spoils and pilfering property from corpses was nothing new in their line of work.  He considered himself one notch higher than a grave robber because he oftentimes also dug their graves too, metaphorically speaking.

       As much as he would have liked to claim credit for the destruction of the much-loathed Galbadian Missile Base, though, it was not his doing.  Deserted and half-destroyed, the military ground was nothing more than a wasteland of scrap metal and smoldering junk now.  The reduction of the place to rubble had to have been a professional job.  No ragtag village resistance group or guerilla militia could have organized and implemented such a blow to the coveted government facility, not even the Timber Forrest Owls.

       As much as he sympathized with the cause and disappointments of the puny Forrest Owls club over the years, he was never the type to drift over the lines and into the territory of their civil rights activism.  Issues about basic human rights neither interested nor seemed to apply to him.  Upsetting the status quo in the political Deling-Timber dynamic made no difference to him, and so he would make no attempt to make a difference for either side.  To him, they were nothing more than frequenting clients, and his aim had been to always keep it that way.

       Match looked over at Sujie who had for some time stopped over the scorched remnants of a red Kevlar uniform.  Most of the body of the soldier who had last worn it having been incinerated, the asbestos-laced suit was now much too capacious for the volume he had to offer.  The soldier had lost enough weight to go down four sizes, not to mention his appendages.

       She was definitely puzzled by some quality of the dismembered carcass other than its gruesome image.  From the arch of her eyebrows, he could tell that she was having trouble laying her finger on precisely what it was.  Match glanced distastefully down again at the pieces of charred flesh and decided that he knew precisely what it had been and that he sure as Ifrit wasn't going to place his finger on it, not even to save his life from thirty Tiamats.

       He decided to make a closer inspection of the smoking junk heap near the entrance of the base.  It had a bluish coat of paint over its metal haul, reinforced with countless layers of armor.  This he reasoned from its continued existence and preserved form, suffering only a few dents and escaping the apocalyptic past of the rest of the site.

       Match brushed his hands over the metal contraption quickly, sweeping off a layer dirt and char.  The plate marking read "BGH251F2".  More curious still was an object protruding out of a side compartment that must have fell open upon impact.  He pulled it out without much difficulty and studied it.

       "Looks pretty worthless," he concluded after identifying it as a rusty antique sword with relatively little attack power.

       _Sujie could inflict more physical damage with a soup ladle than with this hunk of tin_, he thought wryly.  _So clumsy and bulky too that I can't imagine anyone ever using this in battle.  It's obviously a collector's item.  I wonder if its age will give it a respectable resale value._

       Scarcely realizing why or how the next thing happened, all he would remember later was the BGH251F2 vehicle rumbling back to life.  Perhaps he had triggered its ignition accidentally.  The damn item compartment had probably been rigged as a trap for scavenging thieves like himself.

       It was time to get going before the mechanism did.  Match stretched his legs and looked around for Sujie.

       He had but to call out to her.  He hadn't been more than an arrow's flight away.

       But as much as he wanted to hold her, she would have been cold and lifeless, totally unresponsive to his touch and tears.

       Her body lay limp, her clothes riddled with bullet-holes hidden only by voluminous bleeding.  Around her messy corpse was littered another twenty-odd cadavers, similarly festooned.

       He fell to his knees, and choked out a pained cry.  It was too wretched and horrible and hateful a cry to belong to a human.

       It was truly the cry of an animal.

       Match looked up at the ceiling and around at the walls, wondering if this was the same den that they had for so many evenings for convivial drinks, communal dinners, and Galbadian national sports-events television broadcasts.  This was where life had been.

       The past perfect tense was correct.  All that remained here was death, to which he too would succumb if he lingered.  He no longer belonged here.  He should get going.  Judging by their sirens, the police would show up at any minute.  The Deling City Civil Authority division was always a convenient twenty minutes too late to prevent any crime.  Tardiness seemed integral to their canonical law.

       And framing the innocent was derivative.  Match tore himself away from the gruesome scene and took off into the night.  He tried to come up with reasons to go to Trabia over Centra or Balamb, to weigh arguments for a land-route or sea-route, but his brain was too choked up with misery to function correctly.  Determining his new destination and mode of travel seemed nugatory compared to the answers he wished to seek from – wished to beat out of – the perpetrator.  All the really interesting questions were those asked at knife-point or at the end of an adamantine baseball bat:

       _Who hired you?_

_       What was your purpose?_

_       Why did you have to kill them?_

_       Why did you have to kill her, you bastard!?_

_       Why didn't you just kill me too?_

_       Are you proud of what you've done?_

_       Are you sorry?_

_       How many times do you think I am going to run your head into the wall before I am happy?_

       Match found himself running towards the south gate exit of Deling City at hyper speed.  If he kept his bearing, he could eventually make it to the southern coastline of the Galbadian continent and find a port with a passenger ship.  He considered how if he took one of the chocobo taxis or called for a chocobo air lift, he would have drawn less attention to himself – the red blur streaking down countless streets and was drawing a small cylindrical cyclone of dust and scraps behind him.  Yet, he didn't want to risk any chocobo driver remembering and describing his face should the police conduct an unusually thorough inquest.  At any rate, he was almost clear of the urban slums.  Match pushed the blistering pace up a notch…

       …and screeched to a stop when he saw ahead of him what was blocking the only southern road out of town – a huge mobile contraption fitted with the latest automatic weapons and medium-sized projectile launchers.  Match could make out the markings on the side of each of the eight legs of the mechanical juggernaut – "X-ATM095."  Reciprocally detecting his presence, the battle tank shifted its weight and stomped towards him.

       _Someone really wants me dead_, was his first thought.  _Talk about ruining one's evening…and it used to be so nice to be wanted._

       The speed of the Weapon surprised him.  Its eight legs were smoothly coordinated and the obvious drawbacks from its bulk in maneuvering cleverly minimized.  It was probably designed to look like a giant spider in order to intimidate its opponents, perhaps scaring the weaker ones stiff.  Whatever he chose to call it – Widow spider or widow-maker – it was upon him in less time that he imagined and almost before he had time to react.

       Match came to his senses and rolled out of the way of pavement-splitting Arm Crush just in the knick of time.  Even before he could scold himself for underestimating the enemy, though, the robotic Widow had flung out another of its legs.

       Match instinctively dodged aside, gasping as the metal appendage flew past his face and took out wall of the building behind him.  The white lettering of "X-ATM095" was less than two inches away from his nose, discernibly under the focal length of his eyes required for legibility and too close for comfort.

       He spent the next twelve seconds moving from place to place, sometimes caroming off the brick walls that flanked the street, cutting to and fro, weaving between the monster's legs, always eluding its attacks by a split-second and driven on by the sound of concrete being dashed to pieces where he had just been.  The threat of a horrible death was more inspiring and moving than any poignant sermon or Haste spell, and it seemed to lend a second set of wings to his feet.  It was tepid consolation and amelioration to his foe's next attack – a long series of piston-powered pounces under which it was eight times as difficult as before to avoid being squashed.

       His heart rate was soaring.  Having witnessed the full exhibition of the Widow's agility and maneuverability, Match doubted that he could successfully flee from the fight without a diversion first.  If no such opportunity presented itself, he would have to stand his ground.  Match wasn't too keen on staying on the defensive forever, because he knew that without an offensive counterattack he would eventually lose.  Yet, he was just as adverse to the idea of striking the metal hull with his bare fists.  He judged miserably that that chucking stray pieces of refuse at the beast would be ineffective.  If only he had access to magic, he might in fact be able to damage it.  Machine-type enemies were especially susceptible to Lightning-based spells, but the intermediary agents popularly called "Guardian Forces" were substances of mere legend.  He certainly had never seen any, much less captured and enlisted the help of one.  Match wondered how much truth historical fiction actually contained.

       The mechanical monstrosity lurched back and forth, placed its armored head forward and tried to ram him repeatedly.  Always it would back-pedal with two sets of legs while throwing a barrage of kicks and crushes with its other two pairs.  Thus it never gave Match the chance to seize the initiative.  The lightning-quick swipes narrowly missed him, but he could feel the weight of the air that the blows carried behind them.  Any physical connection between metal and flesh, even if just a slight knick, would have been akin to being nailed by pile-driver or speeding truck.

       In reaction to its own near misses, the Widow swept its hind legs around for another assault, leveling three iron lampposts in the process.  Match somersaulted at just the right time so that when his body was inverted at the peak of the flip, by extending his right hand, he was able to plant his palm on the killer beams and catapult over it as it sped by.  Still airborne, he grabbed onto a protruding branch of a telephone pole and swung himself up into a perching position.

       Its light-emitting diode sensors detected and followed his new elevation.  As such, it angled its body up to face him, drawing itself to full, frightening height.  This was the demonic machine that was supposed to kill him, the technical innovation against whom he was pitted in the arena of life and death.  The stakes were high and the odds were completely against him.

       The devil drew near.  Darker became the black pitch of night.

       Then to his surprise and momentary relief, the Widow backed down, if only for a half-second.  In that lacuna of time, it managed to prepare, announce, and execute the launch of a "Ray-Bomb Plus."  The self-important robotic voice that had crackled over its loudspeakers was cold and lifeless.  Match had heard Sujie use that tone of voice during her bad days as well.

       _Well, at least it's not enjoying this any more than I am_, he guessed.

       A medium-sized pellet that he deduced to be the Ray-Bomb was propelled into the air with a bang and spiraled towards him.  He definitely did not see any pluses in his situation.  What he could see was the micro-circuitry on the surface of the projectile switching on as the color indicators changed and the bomb armed itself.

       And it was coming straight at him, coming for him, calling for his name…

       He had but to call out to her.  He hadn't been more than an arrow's flight away.

       But it was clear that her attention was purely focused on someone else.

       He recognized the man she had meant to tarry by his A09-Series Galbadian Tactical Assault Motorbike.  It was the same bike he had scoped out outside the weapons shop and the same bloke who had walked out of it and ridden off on it.

       _He could have done without all the commotion, though_, Match fancied.  _It was probably just to impress the Miss_.

       The blue-haired belle had been waiting alone on the marble steps for quite some time before he finally made his grand entrance into the Quad.  Even he had expected her to whack him, and she surprised both of them by doing and saying nothing.

       His eyes following the blonde's movements now, it was a no-brainer to infer from her body language that she was extremely disappointed.  The lithe body so buoyed up and charged with vitality the moment before had been toppled.  It was as if the buttress of anticipation had given way and her whole spirit had come crashing down.

       He'd never felt so sorry for anyone before.  He could hardly believe his eyes.  Was this the same woman he had saved on the basketball court by posing as Squall Leonhart?

       She must have known that her voice could not possibly have carried beyond the roar of the thirsty engine, and that the man in the smart, black uniform had not ignored her deliberately.  Something about the way she was cushioning her head against her palms told suggested to him that she was probably used to it, deliberate or not.

       In that minute interstice, he thought he heard and felt an extrasensory pop – the audible and tangible proof of pain.  Tender hearts make a louder sound than tough ones when they crack.  Ever so gently and ever so sorrowfully she tore the insignia off her vest and let it flutter to the ground.  It fell every bit as lifelessly as would a plucked feather.  A grave injustice it seemed to trample over the dead, even with steps as light as hers.

       Yet, to him her beauty seemed to shine more fiercely after a touch of sadness, as if her frustrations and defeated resilience were a veneer to something more transcendental.  Still, Match could not deny that something had transpired in her private moment of epiphany, something that was a cause for concern.  The dignity was still there, but the person did not seem to be.

       _Rinoa_, he worried, borrowing the name he had heard her assailants use during their first meeting, _where have you gone?_

       As if on cue, she turned to leave, and he had to strain his neck further out in order to keep her within his line of sight as she walked back into the Garden atrium through the archway.

       As nauseated as Quistis was with the idea of her continued employment in SeeD, she spared a moment to allay her paranoia.  The premonition that someone was looking over her shoulder had for some time been nagging at her, and under usual circumstances when she was less upset, she might have felt silly giving in and so denied it, but today was different.

       Could the setting sunlight be playing tricks on her eyes again between the shadows and silhouettes?  Just as she passed under the Gothic portico, she thought she caught a glimpse of someone or something perched over the gable.

       When she stepped back to look again, there was no one there.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters. Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible? Thanks in advance.


	33. Setting 29: 1840 DAY 23, Winhill Ellone'...

**Setting 29: 1840 DAY 23, Winhill Ellone's Old Home 2F**

_"One day, to pass the time away, we read Lancelot._

_When we had read how the desired smile_

_was kissed by one so true a lover…_

_that day we read no more."_

-Alighieri, Dante

_Inferno V_

_   T_here was no one sitting behind the piano that night.

       He had left Kiros and Ward behind at camp and slipped back to Deling City under the cover of the moon.  Earlier that afternoon they had been reassigned south to a reconnaissance unit in Centra, meaning that come morning time they would probably be dropped off there with little reinforcements to spy on the Estharian excavation of the legendary 'Crystal Pillar'.

       _Whatever that is_, Laguna reiterated dismissively.

       He didn't actually care.  Normally the aspiring journalist side of him would not have let material as sensitive as this slip past him down into the drain of oblivion so lightly, but anything he did during his mandatory term of service in the Galbadian infantry was restricted information that, while newsworthy, was not publishable.  It was just more convenient to forget everything he did during the day by focusing completely on his occasional guilty indulgence in the nightlife in Deling.  In this way Laguna Loire found his lifestyle the frightening antithesis of a would-be writer's; each morning he would wake up to a fresh, blank page on which he would write his autobiography and each evening as he pulled the covers over his head he would crumple it up and toss it in the wastebasket.  Over time the pile had built up so that there was more trash than actual bound pages in his life's story.  There wasn't much about him that he could tell anyone, and what remained was too scant to strike up a conversation with- the manifestation of a free-lance writer reduced to a free-floating soldier without a past.  If he wasn't at a loss for words, he was at a loss of life to narrate.

       The floor of the bar seemed glossier than it was when he had last left it.  The sound of his boots against the surface seemed to echo with a deeper resonance, probably heightened by the hot blood rushing to his head as he gathered the courage to make the big move.

       He was certainly tired of Kiros and Ward constantly ragging on him.

       _They can call her 'Piano Lady' all they want_,he adamantly held, _but to me she's a vision._

       Except for the fact that at that moment he couldn't find her anywhere.  At this hour, there weren't but a few booths and tables occupied either.  The doldrums that seemed to seize the place indicated that it was either in its off-peak hours or between worker shifts.

       _She's probably up in her room_, Laguna guessed.

       The first attempt up the stairs had failed.  He had come back down after mounting three steps with a mind to recuperate for at least a half hour.

       _Come on, leg_, he coaxed, _show your mettle._

       Rallying his nerves together for a second advance was proving more difficult than he had thought.  He ended up quite subconsciously sitting at the loneliest-looking table in the far end of the room to rest his bad knee before trying a repeat climb.  It wasn't an Everest, but he felt that he needed an oxygen canister if he wanted to successfully tackle the staircase.  The closer he got to her, the thinner the air seemed.

       A sleepy-eyed waiter ambled over to his table and asked if he could take his order.

       Laguna asked if the bartender wouldn't be able to whip him up a Mogberry Arctic Latte with an extra flavor shot of Mad Rush at this hour.

       The waiter scratched his head and revealed that in his eight years of service throughout all the large pubs and posh nightclubs in Galbadia that he'd never heard of such a silly drink, nor had he ever come across the name in any of his text books or manuals before his prestigious graduation from the _Le Garcon Chic _School of Waiting. 

       Incensed by a zeal to cure the server of his ignorance, Laguna was compelled to list all the ingredients and their proportions to the beverage, assuring him that it would be all the rage in the next twenty years.  As the waiter hurried off to pass the instructions to the bartender, Laguna settled back in his chair and resumed his attempt to lower his pulse with deep breaths.

       Meanwhile, his attention strayed, only to refocus on two men in military uniform sitting at the center table in the lounge.  With a start he ducked under the table out of fear for being spotted off of the base without authorization.  Luckily they seemed to be in the closing stages of their conversation, during which he had not been noticed.

       The insignia on their uniforms indicated that one was a lieutenant and the other general.  They were engaged in a convivial exchange of toasts rather than some clandestine meeting to discuss any sensitive military information.  It didn't take Laguna long to figure out by the direction in which the drinks were being bought and offered that they were celebrating the promotion of the lower-ranked officer.  For such an occasion, it was Galbadian custom for the junior to buy his senior three shots, followed by the senior buying the junior two shots, and the junior paying for all the orders thereafter.  Apparently the lieutenant was slated to become a captain by the end of the week.

       Laguna strained his ears trying to listen in on their conversation and catch a name or two.

       "Caraway, my boy, you've really done it this time," the older, more decorated man congratulated with a half-empty glass in hand.

       The younger officer bowed his head graciously and returned the compliment.

       "All I've done is apply what I learned under your tutelage, General Shojora," he deferred modestly.

       This incited a second hearty laugh from the addressee and another toasting.  They brought their glasses together.

       _Shojora?_  Laguna recognized that name.  _General Shojora?_

He cocked his head in disbelief.  _The general of the whole army is here!_

       Laguna's immediate reaction was to begin fumbling around for a business card with which to introduce himself and his talents in journalism.  Perhaps he would be able to network a post in the Galbadian Ministry of Education after his term of service, or even obtain preferential access to military interviews for future news coverage that the Deling media could broadcast from the communications tower they were planning to build in Dollet.

       His imagination was cut short by both the realization that he could not afford the demerits and pay reduction that he would surely be penalized with for sneaking out of the camp if he did venture out and introduce himself, and by the two officer's rising from their seats in an effort to pay a visit to the restroom.  They had each had about eight rounds of vodka.

       "They have a promising performer here," the general told the lieutenant as they walked past Laguna.  "Don't know if you've had a chance to see her."

       "Can't say that I have," the younger of the two replied as the door to the men's room closed behind him.

       Laguna stuffed the grubby name card back into the cluttered depths of his pocket.  Suddenly feeling the pain in his leg dissipate, he rose to his feet.  To test out his new peripatetic capacity, he meandered all over the room and eventually ended up standing over the table that his two senior officers had just quitted.  Though their jackets hung limply over the back of their chairs, it did not appear as though they would be back anytime soon.

       A decorative piece of Ribbon lace that lied derelict on the table caught his notice.  His eyes widened.  _Ooh, pretty!_

Laguna's Ascent to Heaven: Take Two.

       The second-floor didn't usually induce this type of vertigo.  If he could only get to his feet, he was sure that his steps would be as spry as a newborn sprig on the first day of spring.  To whom should he attribute his dizziness?

       Laguna literally crawled along the hall until he came to the right room.  Knees severely racked and useless, it was with great effort that he finally pulled himself up into sitting position against the stucco wall.  Not ready for the challenge at hand, he slid back down and flopped against the carpeted hallway floor with his back against the doorframe.  The spot where he sat had a plushy feeling to it, comfortable like a pile of fresh flower petals.

       _It probably wouldn't be a good idea to sleep here tonight.  If she doesn't freak out in the morning, it will be because she'll have probably tripped over me on the way out before noticing._

       He thought about knocking on her door.  He could feel its woody surface and imagined her palm on the other side just within the contour that his own palm was making on his side of it.  Just as he was about to lean into it, it swung open.  His mouth gaped in surprise.

       Light.  Lightness.  The light!

       Hush.

       Descend the black curtains.  A blank screen.

       Let there be…

       Suddenly shuffling.

       Shuffle-shuffle.  Sporadic.  Spastic.  Seismic.  Splenetic.

       Moans and giggles.

       Exit hero, stage right.

       Dreamt the same thing…again, didn't I?

       _Damn_, he thought.

       Laguna woke up in a cold sweat, wondering what had just happened and how many more times it was going to repeat itself.

       The run-down room that he found himself in looked vaguely familiar, but did not seem the least bit hostile.  That much he could gather from the pink polka dot sheets that partially covered him, which wasn't a favorite among the enemy camps or interrogation rooms of the time period.

        _Untrendy! _he was about to exclaim before he became aware that he wasn't alone in the room.

       A weathered old maid stirred from her stool beside the bed he was lying in.  She had had the unfortunate task of tending to him with all of his comatose excitement to keep her company.

       "Where am I?" he asked her.

       "Relax, Mr. President," the matron-figure answered.  "You're still in Winhill."

       "What about Kiros and Ward?" he posed after he had rewound his memory far back enough to realize what activity he had been engaged in before blacking out.

       "They thought it was best to let you recover here while they continue the search for Ellone back in Esthar," the woman informed him.

       "How long ago was that?" Laguna asked as a wave of fatigue-induced drowsiness washed over him.

       "It's been eight days since they brought you in," she answered after taking a moment to count them off with her fingers.

       "Have I gone to the restroom in all that time?" he murmured just before he drifted off.

       The last thing he remembered was the stern look she gave him in place of an actual reply.

* * ** *** ***** ********

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters. Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible? Thanks in advance.


	34. Setting 30: 1845 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Gar...

Setting 30: 1845 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Garden Main Lobby 1F 

_"It is in the thirties that we want friends. _

_In the forties we know they won't save us any more than love did."_

-Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key

_   S_he gave him a long hard stare that didn't wasn't relaxed until after he had already disappeared from view.

       Sergeant Jay had walked by along a perpendicular corridor, and in her hurry back in from the quad, she had almost run into him.  Still frazzled from her altercation with Squall from the elevator earlier than afternoon and feeling defeated from not being able to satisfactorily and diplomatically conclude it before he rode off into the sunset left her in a state where she could only glare at Jay but not find any mordant criticism to launch at him.

       On the bright side, the thought that he would continue to advance in the ranks of Garden administration without her there to oppose him was sufficient to make her rethink filling out the two-weeks' notice and the resignation letter to Cid.  Unable to allow that to happen, she decided she would have to stay in her tortured status as a Garden employee.

       "How many more times is this going to happen?" Quistis huffed, relapsing into a slouch and leaned against the wall to share the weight of gravity.  She extended her lower lip in an affected pout.

       More than wanting to finish getting her point across to Squall, who didn't seem the least bit receptive, was her desire to get a good look at the girl riding on the back of his glossy A09-model Galbadian military motorbike.  It would be one vehicle she'd probably never have the privilege of riding on herself.  
       The cord of jealousy within her snapped in three.

       Quistis sighed again.  The burden of responsibility, playing out gender-roles, and keeping up appearances were weighing down her more than ever these days.  Additionally, Seifer's emergence would not make her life any easier.

       "Yoohoo!" a seductive and all too familiar call rang out from behind her.

       Quistis turned, her eyes meeting her closest companion GF as she phased into reality.  Shiva was rubbing a fluffy towel against her long, flowing hair meticulously.  Her status as a water elemental notwithstanding, Shiva seemed to enjoy perpetually drying her hair, whether or not she had just stepped out of the bath.

       "So I hear you're the Headmistress of this Garden now," Shiva remarked with her big shiny eyes.

       _Yes_, Quistis nodded absentmindedly.

       "Does that mean we get a bigger tub?" the ice goddess inquired eagerly.

       _No, I'm still living in the same room_, Quistis thought to complain, _and no one is treating me with any more respect than they used to._

       "Well at least you get your own shower," the sylphlike GF pointed out.  "In the nether meta-plane, all the junctioned GFs have to bunk together on the same floor regardless of gender."

       Headmistress Trepe closed her eyes and rubbed her temple in an effort to contemplate the complications presented by Seifer's intrusion.  Was it one more thing to worry about or one less thing to worry about?  Both her experience and gut instinct told her that nothing was as simple as it seemed, and nothing made anything else simpler.

       "It's so unsanitary because Ifrit and Minotaur shed like complete mofoes and leave stray hairs everywhere!" she griped prissily.  "It's totally wretched."

       The ice goddess shuddered, throwing miniscule bits of snow dust from her body down to the ground where it vanished back into the foggy penumbra around her feet.

       "How can you expect me to work in such unprofessional conditions?" she bemoaned melodramatically.

       "I'm not even sure how I expect you to work at all," Quistis unsympathetically rejoined with a hint of criticism.

       Shiva batted her lashes as a means of excusing herself from the charge of shirking on her work schedule.

       "Hey, I have an idea," Shiva chirped not all too subtly changing the topic.  "Why don't we go for a quick bite at 'Garden Ricebox'?"

       "I don't have time," Quistis replied quietly and looked at her watch.  "I have to class to teach in a fifteen minutes."

       "But there's always time for food, cute waitresses and me!" the GF objected.

       _I'm serious_, Quistis adamantly maintained.

       _You're always serious!  You're no fun!  _Shiva pouted and tried to push her.  She changed her mind halfway and decided it would be more effective to hug her and not let go until she agreed to go eat.

       To consider the possibility, even though that meant taking Shiva seriously, made Quistis even more despondent.

       _Maybe I am no fun_, she posited.  _And maybe Rinoa was.  That's why he-_

"A-hem," Shiva faked a cough to bring the conversation back out into the open.

       "You're getting ice on my uniform," Trepe told her.  _Even if the other students can't see you, they'll be able to notice my outfit turn into a wetsuit._

       Shiva made a convincing pout and let go grudgingly.

       "Brrr," she mouthed after a while, shivering, "it's become chilly out here.  When did the Garden maintenance crew turn up the A/C in the quad?"

       Quistis thought that was a peculiar comment, given the GF's job description.

       "I can smell the coldness," the elemental added, just to make sure her Mistress heard her.

       "That's because your nose is all stuffed up," Quistis replied dryly.  _Usually a good indicator_.

       She had used up more time than she had available to her and decided to head off before her constant companion could find a reply.

       The adjoining hall way would lead her to her classroom, which was coincidentally just next to the infirmary where Seifer, Rajin, and Fuujin were being attended to.  Maybe she could spare just a few more minutes to question him before her lecture.

       Shiva wrinkled her nose and stared longingly down the opposite length of the corridor towards the 'Garden Ricebox' eatery on the other side of the lobby.  Lowering her head in defeat, she fizzled back into a meta-realm where all junctioned GFs go when they aren't called upon.  It was like a waiting room at the doctor's office for the patients, or alternately the second floor of a fire station where all the firefighters congregate before each next big moment.

       Quistis was about three-quarters of the way to the lecture hall when she noticed a familiar of hers standing in front of the common billboard.  It was Selphie in her skimpy yellow jupe.  She seemed entranced by the advertisement posted in the center of the board.  To Quistis, it didn't seem like much of an ad.  She might have even gone so far as to say that it was rather dull.

       The Headmistress rolled her eyes and tapped her junior on the shoulder but was unable to solicit a response.

       "Selphie," Quistis reproached half-seriously, "if you stare at anything long enough, it is going to become interesting."

       "Maybe that's why Irvine seems less and less rude," Selphie mumbled back absent-mindedly, probably still unaware who was talking to her.

       "Didn't Squall tell you to get changed?" Quistis reminded her, ignoring the other's last line.  "You'd better listen to him before you get penalized for inappropriate dress."

       But her words were lost on the young SeeD who had already resumed her imperturbable worship of the inane poster.

       Quistis wrinkled her brow sympathetically and decided to leave her be.  Things between Selphie and Irvine had been weird lately, even by their standards.  Ever since he and Zell had gotten back from their climatologic surveying expedition, he had been distant; flirtatious remarks had dwindled down on average to only one every seven hours as opposed to one every seven minutes.  Surprisingly Irvine seemed happiest when he was with Zell.  Let it not be said that SeeD assignments did not build camaraderie between grown men.

       On the other hand, Squall had alienated himself more than he had been when he was still her pupil back in Balamb Garden.  Late-night practice sessions in the training room had been replaced by hours of brooding in his solitary Commander's seat behind a dimly lit desk in his new personal office.  Without any T-Rexsaurs to maim, Quistis wondered what kind of release valve to his new load of suffocating bureaucratic pressures he'd found to keep his sanity.

       Her eyes narrowed and her hand tightened around the handle of her whip.

       The new release valve had blue hair.

       Someone called out her title and rank from behind her.  Turning, she saw a blue-collared, vested boy trying to hail her down.  His costume resembled that of a hotel bellboy, but the insignia on his shoulder patch and his telltale sloppy-style satchel belied that possibility.

       He was clearly a Choco Express mail courier.

       The chocobo was a large mammalian bird that man had learned to capture from the wild and tame over time.  It's historical origins were obscure, and no experts could say for sure whether they had naturally evolved as the crossbreed between the two distinct creature classes, or whether they were artificially created to bridge the duality.  At present, most breeds were hatched and raised in domesticity.  These had no memory of the past heritage and culture, which in her opinion was a real shame.  In their illustrious pre-history, whole chocobo villages had been highly hierarchical and a totemic practices of alpha-male-worship adopted.  They were frugal societal participants and accrued a well-deserved reputation of honesty, which enabled them to conduct warehouse-like business and provide repository and safekeeping services for the humans.  But their mobility on land, air, and water proved more attractive and marketable than their growing intelligence, which the humans were quick to harness and exploit as a pure transportation resource.  The ancient clans of the emerging chocobo nation were summarily enslaved and their camps demolished.

       The few who escaped into the woods were driven into permanent hiding and fear of a repeat scenario.  These survivors made a pact to self-segregate so as to never band together in numbers great enough to attract attention or to give the impression that their pack size would pose a threat to the humans.  In essence, they were coerced into swearing off society, which they never dared to form again.

       The defeated, pacifist refugee chocoboes thereafter lived peacefully in sparse numbers with little confrontation with the human, perpetuating through highly regimented reproduction – one chicobo per household – the rare strain of wild chocoboes that travelers sometimes wander across today.  But the less conservative exiles were incensed.  Jilted, they swore revenge, and to this day their descendants lie awake in the thickets during silent twilights, waiting for the right moment to reclaim their once grand empire and vindicate their tribal roots.

       Meanwhile, it was only natural for the mogli to pick up the lucrative trade that the chocoboes had been forced to abandon and take it to the next level of capitalism – vending goods at retail prices through a network of itinerant salesmen, each with his own distinct route and schedule.  Because the moogle was by nature and training a fiercer warrior than the chocobo, the humans were unable to suppress their civilization as easily or inexpensively, and so they were allowed to co-exist in a mutually beneficial capitalist synergy with little incidence of bloodshed.  The mogli were so adroit in defending themselves and their parcels that the option to commercialize the guaranteed delivery of highly sensitive material became viable.  The Mooglenet – 'Mognet' for short – was successfully implemented as a courier system, whose main economic competitor was the human-operated Chocobo Express.  It was not uncommon to see a moogle courier riding a chocobo, though, which is still the safest and most cost-effective means of travel around Terra, or a moogle working for the Chocobo Express company.  But in this case, the chocobo rider standing before Quistis was a human, a status that graced him with the affectionately condescending label 'chocoboy', even though the nomenclature was usually reserved to designate the caretakers of homegrown chocobo stables.

       "Head-mist-ress-Trepe?" the courier between rapid inhalations.  The raised intonation at the end to signal that he was asking a question was especially hard to pick up for that reason.

       "I am she," Quistis answered, wondering how he had identified her.  _Selphie probably pointed me out to him_.

       "The girl down the next hall told me that I'd be able to find Quisty-er-Headmistress Trepe," he explained, guessing what she was wondering.  His accidental use of her diminutive sobriquet confirmed that Selphie Tilmitt had in fact pointed her out to him.__

       _Oh, I guess she did notice me_, Quistis thought to herself.  _At least someone recognizes that I exist_.

       The Choco Express rider fumbled around in his mailbag before producing a postcard.  He eagerly presented it to her without so much as brushing off the stray Gysahl Greens fibers from its face first.  His pouch was probably loaded with bundles of the chocobo feed, more than enough for the bird.  Quistis assumed the rest was for his personal use, but thought best not to comment how he was not allowed to light up on Nova Trabia Garden property.  If he wanted to take a little time off for himself, he'd have to smoke it across the street in the vaudeville 'Torama Tavern'.

       Quistis took the postcard and looked over the sendee's address.

Irvine Kinneas, Sn. Ins.

       Nova Trabia Garden

       Block 435, Dorm A7

       Trabia, TR 11088

       Continent 3****

       "It's not for me," the Headmistress remarked, handing it back to him.  She had almost forgotten that Irvine's room in Nova Trabia Garden had been assigned before he and Zell had been dispatched on their atmospheric inspection assignment.

       "The front desk couldn't locate the intended addressee and suggested that I forward it to you," the chocoboy informed her.  "I have a very busy schedule today, and following up on forwards isn't required in my job description, so if you could make sure that he receives it, that would be a big help."

       _Shiftless worker, that's a filthy lie! _was Quistis' immediate thought.  _You're probably just itching to take a two-hour downer._

       "I'll make sure he gets it," she said with a saccharine smile instead, opting to uphold the propriety of her office.  _But it will have to wait until I'm done with my lecture._

       The Chocobo Express employee smiled and left.

       Quite accidentally Quistis cast a cursory eye over it as she headed for her classroom.  Immediately getting the gist of the message, she stopped dead in her tracks.

       _This can't wait_, she decided, and directed a runner from the custodial lounge around the corner to take the message to Senior Instructor Kinneas who was probably at the basketball courts.  In afterthought she added that he make sure that Officer Tilmitt did not see it or intercept its delivery.  Nodding to show that he had understood all her instructions, the runner rushed down the hall and across the lobby.

       More than a little worried about the unforeseeable consequences that the course of events that just expired would lead to, the Headmistress tarried for a second longer to stare blankly at the empty corridor exit.  In her unproductivity, she was beginning to feel a bit like Selphie of whom she had just been critical for the same crime.

       Shaking herself out of the daze, Quistis remembered that she had somewhere to be.  She shifted her legs into first gear and felt the rest of her body move with them.

       Presently she found herself in front of the door to the infirmary but slightly hesitant to left her ID card over the sensor to open it.  For the true grasp of what lied behind it and why she could not fathom but she could fret.

       "What am I going to do with him?" she wondered warily and lifted her keycard.  The automatic door slid open with a pressurized hiss like that which escapes the inner bowels of a serpent out through its gaping mouth and across its tongue the nanosecond before it strikes.

* * ** *** ***** ********  
Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	35. Setting 31: 1846 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Gar...

**Setting 31: 1846 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Garden Infirmary 1F**

_"The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it."_

-Faulkner, William

_   "W_hat are we going to do now?" Seifer hissed venomously.  "Idiots!"  
       He was beyond furious; he was extra furious.

       _All of my labors – wasted! _he realized._ The laborious planning it took.  All the preconditions met.  The sponsor –_

"Calm down, Seifer," the voice of a middle-aged woman coaxed through the obfuscating hygienic curtains.  They bore the same color as that kind of very unappetizing green which everyone who has been hospitalized has grown to hate.

       From his mobile stretcher, Seifer looked up to see the face of Dr. Kadowaki peering through the transparent plastic porthole laced into the green screen.  She looked anything but curious, as if she had expected him to devise some brilliant, laborious plot to get caught just to bother her.  The expression on her face told the story of a once very promising individual who had settled into the numbing shoes of professionalism and so became bored and jaded without really knowing the cause.  These types were often the most dangerous because no amount of internal soul-searching would be able to produce a remedy for their emotional hollowness.  What they were badly missing could not be found within them, but in the outside world.

       Seifer on principle would protest to any command that was given that he did not himself issue, and he would have done so already if he was so easily willed by a woman with a 12-inch hypodermic needle.  Thus, he did as he was told and calmed down.

       "I haven't seen you this banged up since you and Squall sparred during the week of the Dollet run field exam," she commented, leaving him to wonder if she expected a reply.

       "But that was before he became a SeeD and you a terrorist," the doctor added.

       All of this was back in the day, before Squall had been promoted to SeeD commander, before Seifer had served as Ultimecia's knight, and before Dr. Kadowaki had been reassigned to Nova Trabia Garden along with the rest of the crew.

       Seifer ground his teeth together before asking, "How has your new sedan been treating you?"

       Kadowaki didn't answer him as she checked his scrapes and bruises.  The medic trainee had done a substandard job bandaging his cuts in the chaotic rush with which they had brought him into the infirmary.

       When his subtler reference to her questionable use of Garden resources did not provoke a response, he prodded her further with, "Is your contact-lens-dealing side-business' motto still, 'You won't see what we see until we see your money'?"

       She veered her eyes over to his and proceeded to look through him.  In a moment like this, though, the link often works both ways, and he got to steal a glance at something that she had probably hidden for a reason.  The vibes he got from her evoked a woman who had lost her dream, or a mother who had lost her child.

       But it was only a faint glimmer, and the wall fell back into place as each backed off from the stare of the other.

       "I hope you are not trying to goad me into paralyzing you," the good doctor warned with a courteous smile, "because I would hate to have to do that."

       "But if you did that, you'd be obsolete," Seifer countered.  "At least eighty percent of the wounded you take care of are sent here by me.  I account for your patient roster and your work docket.  In a society without me, there would be no you."

       The doctor snorted but then gave a nod that carried with it the weight of a yearlong consideration, as if she had pondered this before.  He was the disease that she could not afford to cure.

       "I guess I just have to make you better and send you back into the field to introduce more new customers to my office," she concluded as she took his temperature.

       Seifer nodded with a stoic expression.

       "And make sure you send them here and not to the mortuary," Kadowaki reminded him.

       "We understand each other," he replied, taking a split second to wonder where the rest of his posse was, not to mention his sword.  _They don't seem to be in this room at least.  Haven't heard a peep out of either of them when they were groaning like there was no tomorrow just a few minutes ago.  Maybe I've been isolated?_

       As if sensing that his delayed concern for his comrades was finally seeping into his lobes of consciousness, Kadowaki shook her head and gave him the brief update about Fuujin and Raijin's conditions.  It was actually less than brief.

       "She barely got out with half a life in her, and he will be lucky to walk again without a limp," was the succinct prognosis.

       "What about my sword?" Almasy demanded impatiently as if she had wasted his time getting to the main point.

       The doctor's brow darkened crossly and the woman stood up with a disgusted huff.

       "And there you have it," she announced, her words unguent with criticism, "the true character of leadership in the flesh-"

       Seifer's face reflected a frown and waited for her to finish the phrase she was hanging on.

       "-I can't imagine why they follow you," Kadowaki ended her icy assessment.

       "I guess you haven't been keeping up with the program," Seifer chided condescendingly.  The latter half he snorted with a gusto that spoke of the utmost confidence that he had in himself: "Get one thing straight: Leadership means that I'm always right, no matter what happens."  _As if you had any right to assume the moral high ground and lecture me on integrity of character!_

Kadowaki shook her head and headed for the door, her stiff body language and grim kinesics betraying her disappointment in herself for ever assuming that he could be reasoned with.  The automatic door slid open with a pressurized hiss as her key card drew near the card reader along the door frame.  After she had exited through it and stepped into the hall outside, she paused there for a second to say loud enough so that he hear but without looking back at him, "A true leader doesn't have to make the right decision every time, but he should always make his decisions for the right people.  Maybe you've been so caught up the 'what' that you have forgotten about the 'for whom', Seifer.  It's not all about you.  Others are being mangled, crippled, and handicapped in pursuit of your goal, your dream.  Had it been Headmaster Kramer or Headmistress Trepe out there today, even if the result had been no different, at least the intention would have been.  The difference between you and Commander Leonhart comes down to-"

       The infirmary door closed behind Kadowaki after she stepped out, cutting off the last of her words from Seifer's ears and driving home the point that he was lying prostrate and alone in lifeless white room that might as well have been a grand casket.  The clamp of the lock on the other side of the door had sealed him inside his coffin.

       Left to himself for the first time in a long time, Seifer fidgeted.  He had been in constant company of his subordinates in the subterranean mine shaft for weeks, and even as far back as when he had been in the Disciplinary Committee, he was never seen in public without his right and left hands – the dextrous Fuujin and the gauche Raijin – flanking him.  A coterie drew so much more attention in the Balamb Garden lobby than any solo stag performance he could have put on on his own.  Perhaps the two of them were the key to making him appear larger than life, accounting for much of his reputation.  In one manifestation they built up his reputation so that it could precede him, and in another they would precede him in battle, as if a prelude to the symphony that he would orchestrate alone on his podium of solitude.  But so many times had this composer lost his cool.  He had tried so hard to distance himself from everything, from the world, to render himself untouchable and otherworldly.

       He was embarrassed now not because he had the pretension to presume that he had deliberately molded his image on a purely selfless agenda, but because he had lost sight of all the once unselfish motives behind it that he used to go refer back to to justify that he was in fact uncommon and above the rest.  There had been some good in shutting the rest of the world out before he could stomp on it and climb to the top where it all would make sense.  It was precisely because so little made sense sometimes and things happened for no apparent reason that the innocent were made to suffer; that sons were left fatherless and wives without their husbands.  The order that was lacking had to be replaced, because without order, there could not be justice.

       He wanted justice more than anything, even more than fame.  Vindication from his defeat by the SeeDs during his service to the sorceress was important too, but still not as inveterate and high a priority as his long-seeded search for justice.  If he could find out why his father died and who killed him, that would be the end-all to how everything began.  Of course, taking justice into one's own hands was probably not the recommendation of the general will, but he felt he was the bearer of light in this case; he sought to illuminate the darkness and smoke that shrouded the unworthy, unrighteous massacre of General Shojora's hunting party.  It was his duty to uncover the truth because he was personally involved and because no one else in the Galbadian government would.  The military hierarchy had always worked that way, and that was how the lower echelons could continue to get promoted without any questions asked.

       However, trying to shed light on history was like shining a flashlight in a well.   After his being orphaned, he had fully assimilated his role as a mercenary-in-training way before he met Fuujin and Raijin.  It was easy to be a stranger to everyone in Balamb Garden then, just starting out as a newcomer, and he hadn't expected any help from anyone for his cause, much less the help of a stranger.

       So when one did approach him one evening during his summer recess on the curb of the most desolate street in Deling City, it was a rude awakening.  The appearance of the passerby helper, as it turned out, was a rude shock.

       "Are you okay?" a girl who looked no more than a year younger than him asked, bending down to where he was squatting on the sidewalk.  Her voice contained a gentle tremor, but abounded in genuine concern.  It carried with it the softness of Phoenix down, just like the sad and worried look in her eyes, but at the same time made him feel like a charity case for some zealot of public and humanitarian reform.

       His stripling manhood somewhat impugned, Seifer looked up and snapped angrily, "What?  Do I have a little angel on my shoulder pointing at my head and telling you to help me?"__

       "Not on your shoulder," she replied softly to smooth over his ruffled temper and with more poise than he thought a girl of her no doubt delicate constitution would be able to maintain under his gruff intimidation, "but in your eyes."

       He relaxed his glower and looked back to the lapping waves.  It was fascinating how the ripples would take turns sparkling under the last reaches of the setting sun.

       "You don't know what a relief it is to know that no man will ever find you ugly," she chirped offhand, beaming as if she was well acquainted with the feeling.  It was a change in the pace of the conversation designed to throw him off guard, like a feint in the opening of a chess game on the far side of the board, and it worked.

       The remark was so contrary to her demure frame that Seifer wasn't sure if he had heard her correctly.  _So even smurfs can gloat_.  _Deling City…it contains all sorts.  I should have spent more time reading up on its indigenous population in the Balamb Garden Library's tour manuals._

       "Isn't it a bit pretentious of you to say that out loud?" he checked her.  He was becoming somewhat cross with himself for not checking the capital's demographics and statistics on Garden Net before he finalized his plans to come visit the city's planetarium and observatory.  They were both closed for the duration of the summer for renovations, meaning that he had no reason to be there.

       The young woman turned to him with a quizzical face.

       "Are you implying that it's not true?" she murmured, somewhat embarrassed and growing unsure of herself.

       Seifer tried to stifle a chuckle.  _Well…_

       "True or not, who do you think you are?" he parried.  "I mean, short of winning the Miss Galbadia beauty pageant, there will probably never be enough qualification in one's lifetime to voice that statement."

       The girl suddenly took his hand up and clasped it between both of hers.  He lifted his eyebrow but did not pull away.

       "You have to pinkie-swear that you won't fall in love with me," she stipulated without realizing the ludicrousness of her proposal.  She also didn't mind leaving behind their latest exchange as if it had been a completely different conversation.

       Seifer's first reaction was to think: _I don't think you could handle it_.

       "Aren't you even going to tell me your name first?" he diverted.  _Wait, do I really want to know?_

       "Promise me!" she insisted, blatantly ignoring his protest.

       "Why are you so insistent about this?" he inquired, careful to act not the least bit curious though he had his own suspicions.  _It's so like them to just center in on one minute, meaningless detail and dwell on it.  Monomania is definitely a gender-linked disease._

       "'Cause I just am; I'm a girl.  So promise me!" she whined, shaking his arm.

       Seifer paused, debating internally whether or not the excuse she had given him would have legitimately passed on front of a jury.  _What's in it for me?_

       "Pretty please?" she tried next.

       Unconvinced, Seifer didn't budge.  For some reason that eluded him at the present, this scene seemed awfully familiar to him.  _I think you're just wasting my time._

       "While I have your hand, I want your word too," she pressed again when she saw that there was no change in his skeptical demeanor.  She squeezed their interlocked fingers reassuringly.

       He yawned.

       "I'll know if you're lying too," she warned.

       _I care_, Seifer thought with about as much sincerity as Irvine would have exercised in narrating his dating experience to an unsuspecting Garden trainee.__

       Adopting a more ominous tone, she added, "Humor me or I won't let go."

       "Fine by me," he dismissed the thought with a shrug.  "Your hand is smooth to my liking anyway."

       The heavy blush that flashed over her face was testimony that she had not expected him to say that.  As a reflex, she dropped his hand in shock and pushed him away.

       "Believe me," Seifer said quickly, trying to bring her back into the conversation, "I really don't foresee that as being a problem."

       The girl turned to look at him with an attractive gleam in her eyes and searched his for the answer they contained.

       He looked back at her quietly for a moment, long enough to convince her that he was being earnest and she smiled.  He then motioned for her move back closer to him so that they could complete the pinkie-swear pact that he fully intended to honor.

       She giggled and then brushed her long hair back behind her ear as a blush suffused over her cheeks.

       "My name is Yumey," she introduced herself ever so softly.

       "Yumey?" he repeated thoughtfully before returning, "I'm Seifer."

       "Yumey?" another female voice cut into the picture.  "Who's Yumey?"

       Though it was by no means an unpleasant voice, the surprise that its owner's undetected entry had taken Seifer by would render it more cacophonous to his ears than a bleating Mesmerize in nuptial heat.  The startle was enough to take him from the regretfully irreversible scene with the angel whose wings he had deliberately clipped and dashed to the ground at Hodmimir's Forest two summers before back to the sterile enclosure of the Nova Trabia Garden Infirmary.  The rare glimpse at the repressed past fell apart before he could recollect any of the pieces.

       "Does this 'Yumey' have something to do with why you are here, or have you forgotten my name already?" his new addressor asked.  She was standing about five feet away from him at his two o'clock.

       _How could I forget… _Seifer mentally rolled his eyes, which remained physically closed from the intense pain of both the re-visitation of his nightmarish memory and its subsequent shattering. 

       "The rubble that landed on you must have been heavier than it looked," the girl commented with a tender, sympathetic expression.

       _…my dear Instructor Quisty?_

       Having stepped into the room and fully clear from the entryway, Quistis Trepe took a moment to study him as the automatic door closed behind her with a pressurized hiss.

       "How long have you been standing there?" Seifer asked laying his head back on his pillow and staring at the ceiling.  _How much of my internal monologue did you hear me recite?_

       "I got a status report on your condition from Dr. Kadowaki outside as she was leaving and then came in," the Nova Trabia Garden Headmistress replied.  "Looks like you'll be in good enough a condition to be discharged after two weeks of rest."  _Yumey?  To Ifrit!  I wish I'd gotten here earlier so that I could have caught something of what he was murmuring._

       "No mayhem until then?" Seifer responded as if he felt sorry about news.  "Then who will 'Puberty Boy' play with in the mean time?" __

       Quistis' glower was interrupted by the simultaneous activation of all three classes of emergency alarms ringing in the halls at decibel levels powerful enough to penetrate each room in the three-story Garden.  Within seconds the corridors throughout the institution were filled with Garden students who had quitted their classrooms and were stampeding towards the elevators, atrium, and armory.

       Seifer's first instinct was the reach for his sword.  His second was to remember that it had been confiscated already and that the only alternative at hand was remote control to his automated bed incline mechanism.

       "What's happening?" he asked in acute attentiveness.

       But Quistis had dashed out of the room and disappeared into the organized stampede of uniformed passers-by without giving an answer, or perhaps not hearing him over the blaring roar of the alarum.  In the briefest of moments, Seifer thought he saw a face in the crowd stare at him as it passed by the doorway with the rest of the herd of students.  But the long hair was too silver, the eyes too pink, and the look on her face too gentle to be anyone he would recognize, and so he rubbed his eyes and tried again to decipher the cause of the chaos from the chaos itself.  The regulated ring of the alarm seemed to synchronize with the mass of clambering footsteps.  Were they running away from something or towards something?

       "What's going on!?" he hollered again.

* * ** *** ***** ********  
Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	36. Setting 32: 1846 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Gar...

**Setting 32: 1846 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Garden Basketball Courts**

_"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy."_

-Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key

_   "A_nything going on lately?" 

       "Nothing much," the other replied. "What about you?"

       The first trainee rubbed the back of his neck sorely.

       "Naw," he replied disappointedly.  "It's been pretty quiet since Dawes, Edgar, and Fedder got sent to the infirmary.  I think after fifth period I'm going to see if they'll be released soon."

       His companion nodded sympathetically and motioned for the ball to be passed to him.

       "It's a bit ridiculous that they got hospitalized just for trying to get a gal's phone number."

       "Not just them," the first answered and bounce-passed the basketball to his teammate, "but half of the team and thirty from the gym class that period."

       The second trainee dribbled around in a circle and then remarked that hitting on the Headmistress came at a high cost.

       "It just goes to show that if you don't have the deep pockets for the medicinal fees, don't play with that kind of fire," the other summarized with a sigh.

       Neither said anything for a minute.

       "Make it-take it, then?" his friend suggested after some more warm-up exercises.

       The suggestion came with the offer of the ball, as if in challenge.

       "Sure.  Hoop it up," came the at last cheerful reply, along with the return of the check, and so their game began.

       On the adjoining basketball court, Irvine Kinneas listened with great interest.  He was surprised that there was almost no mention of the marauder who had posed as Squall and took a bullet for Quistis.  It was as if the students had targeted Quistis alone for the injuries inflicted on their fellows because the parties responsible were either disciplined too heavily and had been lying immobile on stretchers for the past eight days, or had escaped and were not disciplined at all.  Former Sergeant and now Lieutenant Jay, Head of the Disciplinary Committee, had not been able to apprehend the thief who had come out of nowhere and rescued their Quisty.

       Irvine himself had played a critical part in aiding the culprit's escape.  His whereabouts thereafter were unknown.  This left Quistis as the most convenient and visible person to blame for the incident because she was directly linked in the affair.  The mixed feelings that the Garden classes would experience upon hearing the announcement of her promotion to Headmistress of Nova Trabia Garden just a quarter of an hour ago was natural, then.

       He paused to inspect three female Garden trainees in sportswear as they walked by under his hoop towards the girl's locker room.  The two prettier ones each had a towel slung over both shoulders from behind the neck, and one was tugging at it playfully back and forth as the group passed.  The moisture on their skin at the nape of their necks and along their shoulders glistened under the Nova Trabia Garden outdoor court-lights whose being switched on signaled the arrival of the evening star.

       They in turn looked back at him in his formal SeeD uniform and giggled excitedly.  It made him look gallant but awkward nevertheless on the basketball courts.  The leader of the pack then raised her head and pretended not to take any notice.  Her two companions followed in suit, putting on similarly serious faces.

       "Let's take a break," the SeeD suggested to his opponent in the impromptu pick-up game that he had engaged in upon arriving.  It was a moogle with scant pieces of leopard-patterned clothing and for the past five minutes it had been totally dominating him on the court.

       The moogle nodded in comprehension, slung its bag back over its shoulder and tottered off.

       Kinneas scratched his head and wondered where the creature's owner was.  Even though the basketball court rules strictly forbade the participation of Guardian Forces, it had not yet excluded the mogli and other biped critters that might be kept around as pets by the Garden students.

       _Bong.  Bong.  Bong.  _Irvine bounced the ball over and over at the free-throw line, feeling the vibrations that each collision against the waxed surface of the court produced ripple from the floorboards to his shoes.  The rhythm of the pounding reminded him of drumming as he had not heard since his childhood years.  It was reminiscent of the stomping of the Galbadian soldiers in unison along the aging planks that comprised the floor of the Podunk pub owned by his foster family in Timber.

       _Bong.  Bong.  Bong.  _He was only ten at the time, but he remembered it as if it had happened ten minutes before.  The troops rushed in through the door and flooded the lounge before anyone could react.  At least one of the employees or customers was shot, whether or not they had retaliated, and panic had broken out.  Stella* had pushed him under the bar counter by the cash register and loaded her gun at waist-level, right in front of his face.  She began exchanging a few words with the enemy leader to buy time.  But buying more time to live and load her gun was not as easy as buying her cowboy hat at the market.  That hat would be his older foster sister's last gift to him before her chest exploded from a shotgun shell.

       *Kate Lorraine (lorraine_kate@hotmail.com)

           gives the full account of Stella and Shojora's

           significance in her death in "The Orphan."

       _Bang.  _He didn't even get to hold her hand one final time before her entire body was limp on the floor.  While the initial spurt of blood had gushed onto the cash register, the splash would eventually collect at the edge of the bar and drip onto the rim of his hat.  For each drop it caught, he replaced with one of his own.  When he grabbed her hand again and cried into it after the military had left, it had long grown cold and limp.

       Everything had happened so fast, and the noises so frightening that he had forgotten the name of the General she had cursed as she had tried to raise her weapon.  From what she had showed him from the shooting the bottles in the back alley for practice, she was a quick shot, and it was hard to believe that any of the infantry could have countered her movement so impeccably.

       _Bong_.  Irvine had caught the ball in both hands and flung in against the backboard in rage.  It rebounded over his head and bounced to the far end of the court like a wounded animal limping away from its aggressor.  When he looked down, his hands were shaking uncontrollably.  His arm muscles were tensed and the veins seemed to spring right out of the skin.

This was a regular malady of the nerves that plagued him ever since Stella had been wrenched from him, and that thereafter occurred every time he recalled the incident.  Out of terror he had trembled from head to toe, his little hands hardly able to steady the hat on his head.  Much older now, he was no longer afraid, but only angry.  Over the years, his hatred for those responsible for taking his second family had simmered to its boiling point, ready to tip at any moment.  They had taken more than his foster family members' lives; they had taken his only chance to lead a normal life, a life of the people, free from vengeance, mercenary missions, and constant threat of never returning home.  To be adopted by Garden meant forfeiting the right to wish your loved ones good-bye when it was most needed.

       It was natural for him to enroll in Galbadia Garden to undergo sniper training after he had lost all else.  The character that his past dictated fit the profile of a sniper perfectly.  He was meant to hide, not shout out, and lie in wait for the right moment to reveal not himself, but the death he would one day be capable of dealing without fail.  One shot was all he would get in each case, and one shot was all he ever desired to have against Stella's murderer.  If only he could have one chance, he would deliver the perfect blow and complete the eight-year-long cat-and-mouse game.  Lest he do this, her memory and the significance of her ever having existed would be lost forever.

       Irvine leaned against the post of backboard and knocked his head gently against it.  After I was adopted, I began believing again.  Idealism and optimism are suddenly available when one has the warm arms of a sister wrapped around him.  I learned eventually to cultivate this romantic idea that life would always look out for its children.  The warm, paternal sky held its arms out to me as if it were inviting me warmly into its house of lanterns and promising that I would have an equally scintillating stay as did all its kin.

_       But I was horribly mistaken._

       Irvine closed his eyes and sighed.  _When I look at the stars now, I can only feel a nauseating contempt swelling within my chest.  That is because it took my best friend from me, and worst of all, it didn't even have the common decency to either take me too, or as a surrogate.  Yes, I was quixotic to think that dreams could be materialized as reality.  You could almost say that I deserved it, being foolish enough to even contemplate how everything was under control and followed some just pattern, some uncorrupted lottery.  But I have learned my lesson, and I ascribe all my naïveté, errors, and regrets to that visionary personage who is no more._

       Barely able to suppress the unwished for emotions and locked memories that were threatening to burst from the floodgate of his mind, he struggled to keep his facial expression even so as to mask his suffering from any passers-by.  But it was useless, and his thoughts broke free.  

_       The price for this metamorphosis is the basic forfeiture of all those rudimentary elements of humanity that make him weak against life's contrived banes.  One cannot pierce an opponent's resolve if he has no fear to exploit, and so the heavens have no advantage against an emotionless adversary like myself.  What is humanity but an experiment of nature's casino, where misinformed, wide-eyed children are toyed with and robbed of their assets by taut, immutable house rules?  I have since become the perfect embodiment of the modern-day avenging angel, a cool, calculating automaton who fights the evil of the systems with the unrelenting vigor of each tissue in its body._

_       I was there, right next to her, but I didn't have the power to save her.  I have to live with that one lingering, ironic thought everyday, every passing second of my life, thinking about what he did to deserve that, because people with such promising, radiant futures shouldn't have to exhaust their flames so quickly.  But I will fight this injustice which life has done me, my sister, and anyone else with whom it has felt and will feel like tampering.  I will vindicate my friend by giving everyone else a fighting chance.  I am unafraid of the hardships that lie before me, for I have nothing to fear.  Nothing can deter me from what I wish to accomplish.  As a willing slave to my own burning determination, I am bound by nothing.  I swore that night by all that was holy in Hyne, looking at the heavens, that it would never lure me into its lair from which so many once brilliant but now treacherously extinguished celestial candles, having entered, will never look out and smile to us again._

       Vengeance and patience were more than compatible; they were necessary.  It took years of training and months of research, but finally he met with success.  The summer before last, from Galbadian Garden's Garden-Net, he had been able to dig up the military commander responsible for the pub raid in Timber.  Yet, he was shocked to find out that someone had beaten him to the race for the man's dog-tag.  It seemed that the General had been assassinated in an ambush just three years after Stella's death.

       Irvine pounded his fist against pole.  His fingerless gloves were only for show and utterly useless in protecting his knuckles, but even if he had broken something he wouldn't have cried out.

       He was too late.  As such, he wasn't satisfied.  The conclusion of his story had been written without consulting him first.  The debt owed to him had not been repaid to him directly but through someone else's hands.  General Shojora's death was thus only fraudulent reparation.  He had not yet extracted his due.

       But there was still one alternative open to him.  The decrypted files included a copy of birth certificate whose owner's name had been x-ed out, and the financial reports accumulated over the years which revealed a regular payment to a small institution out in southern Centra that had terminated after the General's death.  From there it would be channeled and redirected to other accounts on other continents, but there was where it was siphoned.  On a hunch, he checked out the address to find that it was an abandoned lighthouse turned orphanage whose owners were unknown.

       Eyes closed and shoulder against metal post, Irvine shook his head.  He had no idea at the time he explored the desolate domicile that year that it had been his ersatz home before Stella's family had adopted him as their own.  The Guardian Forces he had junctioned during his training at Galbadia Garden had taken that from him.  It was a curious quirk of fate to have ransacked his own home for office files that might reveal the identity of Shojora's heir.

       What he had found there was more of a shock in the present than it was in the past.  The recipient of Shojora's patronage was a Seifer Almasy, one-time resident of the orphanage but whose current whereabouts were unknown.  Having no other record, presumably because of his youth, Seifer's location was untraceable.  Irvine had returned to Galbadia Garden somewhat disappointed because he had run into a dead end.

       That was, until the newspapers in Galbadia announced that Seifer Almasy had become Sorceress Edea's guardian knight.  Whether it was dumb luck or Hyne's hand, the opportunity he had sought for revenge was materializing.  Having aced his preliminary SeeD tests and field exams, he felt confident that if he marched to Headmaster Martine's office and requested to be assigned to the Sorceress assassination mission, even though he wasn't yet a SeeD, it would be granted.  His reputation as the best sharpshooter in the Garden preceded him, and the Headmaster had indeed granted the precocious mercenary his request.

       The momentous night came when he had his one shot at Seifer.  On the rooftop with Squall Leonhart, he felt the nervous attack coming on and hastily hid his hands in his yellow duster's pockets.  The moment he had been waiting for for eight years had finally come, and he was on the verge of blowing it.  Taking a moment to shake it off required a hastily-invented excuse to Leonhart, for which he was thereafter inaccurately labeled a ninny in the other man's eyes.  The truth was that he was not one to grow soft before the climax of duty, but that he had to make the choice between completing his professional agenda and his private one.  He would only have one shot, but to which target was he to lay low - the sorceress or the knight?

       Irvine shifted his weight to the other side of his body and moved off from the support of the post and headed in the direction to reclaim his basketball.  The rest of the night was history.  For all the times he had aimed at Seifer's heart, he never pulled the trigger at the target.  Perhaps he had intended to reload right after taking out the sorceress and fire a second shot at Seifer, but after he saw how ineffectual his initial firing had been, he had given up the hope.

       His arms were shaking again.  His heart had picked up a little speed, and his eyes darted about the court, searching for an answer.  It was more of a cause, and not the answer, that he was looking for, though.  What was the cause of the eerie feeling was getting?  It was unmistakably familiar, but he had not felt it so vividly ever since he had left his foster family.  In the years that followed his enrollment in Galbadia Garden, he had only gone back for personal reasons once to visit his legal guardian, his foster uncle, once.  But the air seemed to pulsate with the intensity of his former home.  The familiar faces that all proved false upon further investigation skirted in and out of his line of sight, disconcerting him as one such instance had in the main lobby no too longer ago. 

       _Stella?_

       He dismissed the possibility.

       _I don't know why I always miss you so much. It's the one thing that time can't fix. I haven't seen you in so long that it's almost hard to remember how exactly your signature smile-nod goes. I'm afraid that some day I might not be able to see it again. The progress of knowing people is entropic, meaning that all lines move towards divergence and separation. People only grow farther apart with time.  If I just step aside and let you go by without stopping you, the instant will have been lost but perhaps a longer span of hurt avoided.  One can't miss what isn't first tasted until it has been tasted.  The best way to love you is to be a coward._

"What were you thinking just now?" a high-pitched voice broke into his thoughts.

       He recognized the owner instantly and forced a smile over his face.

       "Who are you kidding?" he said, turning around and embracing her, "I'm not deep like Squall; I almost never think, not about anything."  _But not about anyone, either.  No, not just anyone.  Someone._

       Selphie seemed surprised by the sudden display of affection and actually broke out of it.

       "Don't do that if you don't mean it," she told him, stepping back.  _Did I just say that?_

       Irvine blinked.  _Whoa, what just happened?_

       He wanted to ask her if she was being serious, but uncomfortable with the possibility that she might actually answer, he refrained and inquired instead, "Hey, just wanted to express how much I missed you, honey."

       "Yeah, right," Selphie rebuked.  _Then why haven't you visited me in ages?_

       Irvine looked at her with a merry but empty look.  It was the same one that he had used so skillfully in all his years of informal courtship, the polish of frivolity over the hardened, saddened shell beneath.  The truth was that he couldn't formally date anyone without lying to either himself or his partner.  The mourning period for Stella was still not over, and he had not yet let go.  Time had not amputated his arms nor removed his heart.

       "No, really.  You're incredibly special, you know that?" he tried to convince her.

       Selphie looked up at him suspiciously.

       "Hmm," Irvine added, as if considering it more thoroughly, "it's rare to be incredibly special.  You see, some people are special, but to earn that extra amount, to qualify for that supererogatory distinction, one has to be really, really, really special, someone like you."

       She was finally smiling at the corners of her mouth.

       "Liar," she muttered and hit his arm.  _I know you're lying to be sweet, and it's working.  I can't stay mad at you!_

       Irvine smiled again and then looked away.  _The color of the flames of love is always blue.  In the end, the tears it provokes drowns the very embers that fed its flames, and so only pain remains, replacing the joy.  There is no reason to light another match._

       Selphie could sense the uneasiness between them, but she wasn't sure if he was exuding it or if it was coming from her.  It hadn't happened before they would feel awkward around each other, being childhood friends reunited, but she guessed that there had to be some reason behind his imposing this new buffer between them, this gray, foreign area.__

_       I only have the power to take care of your health, but not your heart unless you let me.  _Selphie told herself.  _Being with you means waiting for some girl who can do the opposite to come and steal you away in the future.  Why won't you open your heart more and open your mouth less?  Why can't I take care of all of you and not just one part?_

       Her stare told him that she was trying to figure him out, trying to understand him.

       It was rare that they would have more than ten seconds of silence between line exchanges.  But for some reason he could only return her gaze and look back at her sadly behind a shielded, unreadable countenance.  _Don't you know, Selphie, that the only romance worth remembering was that which has been lost, and the only love that warranted forgetting was that which has been lost twice._

"So, little lady," he finally remarked, "did you have something to tell me?"

       Selphie took a pair of furry yellow earmuffs out of her concealed skirt pockets and showed it to him.

       "What do you think about my spiffy new earmuffs?" she asked.

       Irvine shifted his gaze from her to the earmuffs and then back to her eyes.  He had his reservations.

       "What's the _real _reason you're here?" he asked again, a bit more sincerity in his tone than before. 

       Unsure of how direct of a response was called for, Selphie decided to stall by straightening out the microscopic wrinkles in her skirt.

       "I guess I just wanted to know where we are," she admitted earnestly.  _You and me.  And I don't mean Nova Trabia Garden_.

       "We're SeeDs," Irvine replied, purposely unromantic.    "What else could we be?"  _What more could we be?_

       "I don't care about all the other girls," she murmured softly.  The sound of defeated pride was sandy, a push against infinite friction.

       "Who does?" he replied with a wink.

       She took a step closer to him.

       "Can you just drop by tonight after dinner?" she begged, lowering her head.  _Please say yes._

       Irvine was stunned.

       "We can find a way to toast marshmallows," she added as an incentive and turned her back on him so that he wouldn't see her blush in embarrassment from abandoning all sense of shame.__

       Irvine sighed, a million and one things blazing through his brain, his mind trying to focus only on one.  In the end, he considered that she was asking for just one gentlemanly call, and that it wasn't anything serious.  _No dinner, no movie, no expectation of commitment._.

       A quick run-through down his mental checklist verified that he was in the clear.  At that point he nodded and then tapped her on the head.

       "I'll drop by tonight then," the quick-draw confirmed and then bent down to pick up his ball.

       Selphie smiled and chirped, "Great!"

       "Which room is yours, again?" he checked before she got ahead of herself.

       "Right next door to your room, silly," she told him in a quasi-patronizing voice.  "Block 435, Dorm A8.  We were all assigned rooms at the same time back at Balamb."  _How long have we been living here and how could you not have noticed!?_

       "Sorry," he replied sheepishly.  "I've been a bit out of sorts lately."

       _As opposed to being out of shorts lately? _she considered the edited version of his statement to herself bitterly.

       "Well, see you then," Selphie announced suddenly.  "When you come, we can watch the new J-drama that I ordered!"

       With that, she scampered off before he could protest.  She knew him only too well.

       _Not another J-drama_, he reacted miserably.

       Irvine stood back up with a frown and watched as the skimpy yellow silhouette disappeared back into the main building.  The corridor she took seemed to lead down to the community bulletin board where he had noticed a curious advertisement poster from before.  The graphic design had been minimalist, which was a bit too avant-garde for his tastes.  Clearing the visual terrain and hunting for objects to focus on was an art he reserved for aiming, not for admiring.

       Eyes still set on the doorway, they presently caught what emerged - a character struggling with the collar of his Garden uniform.  It was a very tight-fitting outfit, the neck portion of which might obstruct circulation if the wearer was determined to button it all the way to the top.

       Irvine watched the boy fight with the fastening mechanism for a bit longer before walking up to him and asking him if he was new to the Garden.  The newness of the outfit whose pressed folds belied regular wear, was patent.

       After cursory courtesy introductions, Irvine pried two primary pieces of information from the Nova Trabia Garden employee.  First, he was their new librarian, and second, he was looking for a moogle.

       "Oh," Irvine exclaimed, "so it belonged to you!"

       "What?  You've seen him?" the newcomer asked, his eyes lighting up.

       "Yeah," the sharpshooter replied.  "It was just here a minute ago, but I'm not sure where it wandered off to."

       The librarian looked a tad bit disappointed.

       Trying to hearten him, Irvine quickly interjected, "So what do you do besides organize the library?  Do you have to chronicle events like a historian?"

       The addressee nodded.

       "Does anyone ever read it?" Irvine asked in curiosity.  "I mean, is it worth writing at all?"

       The boy shrugged and eventually answered, "I guess if there's even one person who will read it, no matter how far into the future from now, then it will have been worth writing."

       Irvine seemed to ponder the point for a moment.

       "Why do you ask?" the librarian wondered.

       "I was thinking about writing a book too," Irvine confessed, "based on my experiences."

       "We should definitely exchange notes and tips then," the other suggested.

       Kinneas nodded wholeheartedly.  But what might have subsequently developed into a great dialogue between was forever cut short by the entry of another personage from the far end of the courtyard.

       Irvine squinted to make out the slouching, downcast figure whose brilliant hair and tattooed face undermined all the formality that his SeeD uniform was intended to convey.

       The most curious thing about Zell's entrance was that he was coming out of the locker room by the Garden garage.  That meant he must have treaded at least halfway around the interior hallways.

       _What was Zell doing in the garage?_ Irvine ruminated.

       But whatever the reason, as Zell drew closer, the look on his face and the lackluster way he was dragging his feet revealed his thoughts, not requiring any translation.  _I haven't heard from you for the longest time. Normally this would be a cause for concern, I guess. Maybe I am a bit curious, but mostly I'm just downright worried. I hope you're doing okay._

       _He's probably thinking about the Balamb Garden library girl with the pig-tailed hairdo_, Irvine speculated.  For a moment he felt like he ought to do something or at least offer to help.  Reaching out wasn't the easiest thing to do, though, especially if the person on the other end was liable to brush him off.

       He was beginning to see Zell as a friend.  It was a logical development from being merely contractually bound together by the same employer, having endured a trip through Time Compression to save the world and weeks of environmental surveying.  Zell was noticeably just as glum when they had reached Mandy Beach, but at the time Irvine had just assumed that it was because of the protracted job and the jetlag that accompanied flying all over the world.

       "We've also got the sworn duty to make you laugh and to keep you from wanting to cry," he could say, but Zell would probably have snickered and pretended like nothing was bothering him.  And then he would have to put up with another annoying episode of Zell's shadowboxing put on display just to prove that he was alright.

       "Seifer's back," Zell announced absent-mindedly, which was far less emotional delivery than Irvine had anticipated for news of such caliber.

       "What!?" Irvine cried, dropping the ball.  _Seifer!_

_       Stella._

       The librarian looked puzzled and picked up the ball before it could bounce out of reach.

       "Who's Seifer?" he inquired with a frown.  _Something doesn't seem right_.

       "Where is he?" Irvine demanded.  "How long ago was this?"

       Zell blinked.

       "Didn't you hear - oh, right," the blonde SeeD recalled, "you wouldn't have heard the general alarm out here in the basketball courts.  Only the emergency alarms were installed on the outdoor facilities."

       "Who is Seifer?" the librarian repeated.__

       "Oh," Irvine exclaimed, recovering somewhat from his shock and remembering that there was a third party present, "have you two met, or should I make introductions?"

       Zell nodded but didn't really register what was being asked of him.

       "Back to your question though," Kinneas continued, "Seifer is - umph!"

       He was nearly bowled over by a half-pint filly.

       "Hey!" the girl protested angrily.  "Watch where you're going!"

       Clearly not the ones at fault for the moving violation, the three men looked at her inquisitively.

       The petite brunette blushed when she recognized the faces of the two senior officers.

       "Oops.  Sorry, Zell, Irvine," she cooed in the cutest voice she could put on.  Syrup was a great way to douse a pancake caught on fire.  She did a little wave of greeting with her finger small fingertips.

       Zell looked at Irvine.

       "Wait," he said, "you know Rishi?"

       Irvine rapped his fellow SeeD on the head.

       "Yeah, met her last week when we walked by each other in the hallway," Irvine reminded him.  Rishi shut her round eyes and nodded fervently in agreement.  And then she opened them back up and smiled.

       "Oh, I remember now," Zell muttered.  "It was right before Quistis nabbed us and made us sit through that Shumi transmission replay."

       _Those liars!  How dare they accuse of us stealing! _Zell and Irvine thought simultaneously.

       _As if there was anything there of value to rip off_, Irvine disgustedly added.

       _Yeah_, Zell complemented the thought, _the Artisan can't sculpt worth Elnoyle dung._

       Finally finding a chance to cut in, the librarian extended his hand to Rishi and began introducing himself.

       "Hi, I'm -"

       "Urgent message for Senior Instructor Kinneas," a runner announced, cutting into the huddle, and into the sentence in progress.  In his hand was a postcard.

       _Oh, it's addressed to me! _Irvine noticed.  He was pleasantly surprised.

       _Duh_, Tonberry King communicated from the back of his head.  It was more of a throaty sound.

       _Quiet, you_, Irvine lashed back mentally at the junctioned GF.

       Taking up the message and making sure to hide it from the view of his companions as he read it, his smile transformed by degrees into a dark scowl.

       At its conclusion, he muttered aloud, "It can't be a coincidence."

       None of the others found any suitable words to ask what the postcard said, and Irvine didn't seem to be in mood to communicatively interact any further with them, so after the courier excused himself, it was Rishi who finally broke the ice.

       "Is that a love note from the new trainee who just transferred from Galbadia Garden this morning?" she joked nervously.  "Wow, Instructor Kinneas, I didn't know you moved that fast!"

Abruptly Irvine fixed his eyes on her as if what she had said was of immense interest to him.  The intensity of his stare caused her to shrink back.

"Are you talking about Pearl or a different girl?" he asked her.

       "What?" Zell asked in disbelief.  "You know Pearl too?"  _What a womanizer!_

       "I met Pearl last week on the bridge in the lobby right before I ran into you two," he explained, indicating Zell and Rishi.  "She was lost and complaining about some irresponsible guy who just deserted her without even giving her a map."

       Seeing Zell's face redden, Rishi scowled.  _That conniving home-wrecker._

       "No, it wasn't her," Rishi told Irvine.  "That happened last week, and this new trainee only arrived today."

       "What color was her hair?  What does she look like?  Did she give you a name?" Irvine assailed her with questions.

       "Why don't you just cut to the chase and ask Rishi if she could give you that girl's number too?" Zell mouthed sarcastically.

       Irvine shot him a look that silenced him and then turned back to Rishi.

       Under the heavy gaze, Rishi searched frantically through her memory banks for the name that the girl had given her.

       Her face lit up.

       "She said her name was -"

       The ear-splitting Garden emergency alarms sounded, ringing out like a sonic boom and nearly knocking Rishi's small frame off her feet.  When she caught herself, she looked back nervously to Irvine who seemed totally unconcerned by their circumstances.  The SeeD was calmly loading his much coveted Pulse Ammo into the barrel of his Exeter rifle.  That meant that while she was still flinching in reflex to the sound of battle, he had automatically reached for his weapon.

       _Wow_, Rishi thought, her amazement and admiration flaring up emotions within her.  _He's so cool!_

Zell cracked his knuckles and pointed to the doorway that led back into main building.

       "You two," he ordered, "get back indoors and find cover."

       Irvine nodded at the two Garden employees for whom the order was intended.  They obliged.

       Just as they got to the doorway, Quistis and Selphie, each flanked by three armed lower level SeeDs appeared through it.  After waiting for the small squadron to pass, Rishi and the librarian continued into the Garden.

       "We're under attack," Quistis updated them by shouting across the courtyard.  "Expected time of enemy arrival is forty seconds."__

       In one sharp motion, Irvine cocked his rifle with one hand.  He nodded to the Headmistress, signaling that his GFs were all properly junctioned and that he was ready for battle.  He didn't need to be told which direction the enemies would be arriving from since the greeting party had assembled here.

       The remaining basketball players had run back to the locker rooms, leaving a clear courtyard.  Standing beneath the roofless perimeter of Nova Trabia Garden, Irvine noted the incoming dark clouds, approaching at an ominous speed.

       "Those aren't clouds," Quistis shouted above the roar of the wind, picking up.  "That's the enemy pack."

       Zell frowned.

       "It take it it's not a swarm of Gratts," he yelled back to his former instructor.

       "No," Quistis responded wearily.  "They're Blue Dragons.  The scanning radar indicates at least forty-five of them, all level 80 or above."  _ETA is fifteen seconds._

       Zell swallowed hard but knew that he had heard her correctly.

       Irvine too was taken aback.  No party of three SeeDs had ever handled more than one Blue Dragon at a time.  If they would have to handle forty-five at once, they would need reinforcements.

       He took a look back at their formation.  Six level 10 SeeDs, eight level 12 SeeDs, and one level 20 SeeD had joined the initial party of ten.  They were still heavily outnumbered.

       "Where are the juniors?" Zell asked, referring to all the students that they had of sub-10 level.

       "I had them stand down," Quistis replied, "because we couldn't gain access to the armory and there were only weapons enough for those you see present."

       Irvine looked at her.  _You can't be serious.  How did we lock ourselves out of there?_

Selphie read his expression.

       "The corridor leading to the armory was locked down during the first general emergency alarm because of Seifer's unauthorized entry as programmed by our anti-theft protocol," she explained.  "The resulting lock requires two keys and both need to inserted at the same time.  We didn't count on needing to access the armory in response to a priority emergency alarm so soon after a general alarm."

       "So who has the two keys?" Zell yelled, uneasily eying the leaders of the pack of flying beasts that were drawing close enough to recognize as distinct entities.

       "Selphie has one, but Squall has the other," Quistis answered.  _ETA is five seconds_.

       Zell went pale.  _He's not in the Garden.  He rode out on his own_.  _Maybe they've intercepted him_.

       "So have you to tried contact Squall?" Irvine yelled.

       The pause in Quistis' voice right before the first of the Blue Dragons rammed through the outer gate of the courtyard induced a chill to run down Irvine's spine.  Immediately thereafter they seemed to be landing everywhere around them.

       "We tried," the Headmistress told the sharpshooter, "but all we got from the other end were sounds of a fight already in progress."  _And the screams.  I can't tell them about the screams._  __

       She had no way of knowing that his pulse was racing every bit as fast as hers, and that his opinion on their outlook was just as bleak.  _So it begins.  Engage!_

* * ** *** ***** ********  
Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	37. Setting 33: 1846 DAY 23, Trabia Coastlin...

**Setting 33: 1846 DAY 23, Trabia Coastline**

_"We sometimes encounter people,_

_ even perfect strangers, _

_who begin to interest us at first sight,_

_ somehow suddenly, all at once,_

_ before a word has been spoken."_

-Dostoevsky, Fydor

_Crime and Punishment_

_   H_is pulse was racing off the charts.

       It hadn't beaten that quickly since his episode at the cliff side over a week ago.  It hadn't hardly twitched when he dived off the twelve-story high promontory into the ocean, nor did it elevate any when he had to bob around for the object of his rescue while under pressure from the approaching school of Fastilochon-Fs.  It was only after he'd finally found her hand and their fingers touched that his adrenaline began to get pushed to the brink.

       He hadn't reached out and held anyone's hand since he jumped into outer space to reclaim Rinoa from the galactic vacuum.  Before that critical moment he hadn't been convinced that there was anything in the world that deserved his personal self-sacrifice.  He still wasn't too sure, but there was no other way he could explain why he volunteered yet again to jump headfirst into an elemental sinkhole to pull out a floundering girl before it swallowed her forever.  The similarity of the emergency and the circumstances delivered a prompting that he had not been able to ignore.

       _Perhaps she reminded me of her._

       But they were two different people.

       In the mental filing system he had built up over the years, he had not allocated any spare folders for emotions.  Quite frankly their recent introduction was wreaking hell on the organization of his thoughts and actions.

       Keenly aware that he was speeding in the upper end of ninety miles per hour on his motorcycle with a terrified passenger sitting behind him, Squall multi-tasked and did a quick run-through of what was on his mind in no particular order:

       About Selphie Tilmitt:__

_       I really ought to chastise her for putting emoticons on the bottom line of the intra-office memo that was sent around to each employee this morning.  Additionally I didn't find her "spiffy" new earmuffs she would surely be gloating about the least bit interesting or spiffy, even though she never got around to showing them to me.  I caught it subtly listed in the items she bought under her discretionary funds in the daily budget report folder that I flipped through on the elevator before I handed it to Quistis not fifteen minutes ago._

_       I also remember Selphie saying something about another student mixer or event.  It's probably going to be a party that no one will attend, but that hasn't stopped her in the past._

       About the Shumi:

       _I need to figure out what their village is missing and what its disappearance has to do with Zell and Irvine.  Still, just because they discovered that it was gone after Zell and Irvine left doesn't mean that it wasn't already gone when the two were there.  Anyway, I still don't know enough about the specifics of this artifact and the consequences of its misplacement or misuse to perform any cost-benefit analysis to determine the optimal course of action to pursue.  Maybe I should call a general officers' meeting and pose this matter formally to a committee discussion.  But following protocol, a meeting of that sort isn't usually convened unless a clear military threat exists.  I know the Shumi have near unlimited financial capabilities, but would anyone really go to war because they've lost something of sentimental value?_

About Malboro Baby Tentacle Rolls:

       _I really need a smoke.  I haven't had a breather from my office work today to indulge in even one.  Have I already run out?  Well, it's not like they are difficult to obtain.  According to Garden intelligence reports that I requested, the new brand of enhanced Malboro rolls have become so pervasive throughout the underground markets in Balamb, Trabia, and even Galbadia at a rate that would astonish even the most optimistic entrepreneur.  This is a real cross-continental cultural epidemic._

       About Ellone Loire:

_       It's been a while since I last heard from Ellone, or anyone from Esthar for that matter.  The last transmission I received from Laguna was during the night of the ball in Balamb Garden.  It was over three-weeks old.  After Selphie verbally coerced me into the communication room to listen to the message, I took what I could get out of it and tried to block out the rest.  The opening line, however, has proven to be too formidable for even my trained mental deletion techniques to suppress._

_       "So, how's the weather, son?  I'm your father now, so if you want to change your last name, son, you can."_

_       Having sifted through all the clumsy grammatical structures, uncomfortable pauses, lame jokes, and non sequitur digressions, though, I finally managed to come up with something worth saving –_

_       "Look for the silver lining and smile once you find it. I see so many of the one in life and so few of the other from you. I want you to know how much I believe in you, how much faith I have in you, how promising I feel your future is, and how certain I am that in the end you will overcome."_

_       It sounded like a line from a movie, actually.  I wonder where he copied that from._

       About the bracelet:

       _They have to be able to find something in the archives about it.  I can't believe how inefficient the research team is, not being able to identify with all the time they've already had._

_       Though the possibility exists for them to be one and the same, I highly doubt this artifact that mysteriously turns up on the beach is what the Shumi are desperately looking for.  Things in this world don't work out so simply and cleanly._

       About Edea Kramer:

_       This morning before I got to read the report about our current budget for the Nova Trabia Garden SeeD program, I received a voice-message from Matron.  It passed all the verification tests and was opened uncorrupted by all the right coding keys._

_       "I've been worried about you lately.  Actually I've been worried since you arrived at the orphanage, more so after we had to send Ellone away on the White SeeD ship to protect her from me, but ever since Cid assigned you the position of the SeeD Commander, I know it's been even more difficult for you.  You never did like being thrust into new environments or circumstances beyond your control.  Originally you probably thought it was only a temporary assignment that had been decided in an emergency situation, but at the celebratory ball after you all returned from Time Compression, it must have been a shock when Cid permanently promoted you to the Commander of Nova Trabia Garden's SeeDs.  My own heart sank when I heard the announcement."_

_       "You have to trust Matron on this one, but she knows how you must feel, even if you are unsure of your own feelings.  You are more lonely than ever.  Even though Rinoa and Ellone have taken leave to see you, reports here say that neither of them is currently with you.  Is that true?  Maybe it's too soon after so hard-fought a battle to settle into your new shoes, your new office, and your new home.  In this momentary reprieve from all the wars we've had you wage, in this eye of the storm, you've probably not had time to get a hold of your new bearings."_

_       "You're not sitting in the back of Quistis' classroom anymore, Squall.  You're sitting by yourself.  Maybe the ambience doesn't influence how deeply you can become absorbed in your thoughts, but when you're alone, you don't even need to be thinking for it to be dreadfully silent.  The hollowness of the space you occupy will produce echoes of the cries from the hollowness of your heart, strengthening it and cutting you twice as deeply."_

_       "I am sad that you've had to realize how lonely it is to be in the eye of the storm, or as your name implies, to be the eye itself. It is your fate for you to be who you are.  You in particular would take the time to notice it while others might obliviously try to charge through the penumbra. It's because you alone in your introspection would stand back and mark it as you do with so many other things- mundane or not, you make them remarkable. But perhaps you feel that few people take the time to remark upon you, and so as a result of their lack of circumspection, you become less remarkable and more estranged. Under the influence of everyone's listening to Julia Heartilly's lyrics, this development was even more probable."  
       "I just want you to know that we're each the point of reference in our own lives. That's paradigmatically what the eye of the storm is – the one grounded weathervane that remains constant in the volume of chaotic life swirling around and past you from all directions, but that unites them with notion a relativity. In your life, the tempest of events hits you the hardest, while everyone else's might just glance off and whisk by notelessly. And while I'm afraid this conception of mine about you won't give you the type of comfort you are seeking, it is of importance tantamount that you know it."_

_       "Though people are uniquely isolated and self-contained in the analogy, you are at least another point of reference in my life. Some time towards the end of the last year while I was struggling to regain control of my body from Ultimecia, I managed to formulate exactly how much and in what way you are special to me: You got to know me during the years when life stood still for me, after I accepted the burden of the sorceress' power and forfeited what I thought would have been my happiest, most golden years of youth, thinking that I would never live beyond the dreaded but desired final battle between myself and you.  And during this time, the rest of world continued to live and share their own stories without me, without my seclusion, without my misery. And yet, because of the time I got to spend with you growing up, I didn't feel as though I was missing it or missing from it at all. You saved me, Squall.  For that, I think you are remarkable and aren't as alone as you sometimes feel you are; you're better connected and remarked upon than you think." _

_       "On those rare peaceful early mornings after the clouds have parted at along the beachside cliffs of Trabia between your dawn and my dusk, maybe when you raise your head you aren't really looking out into empty space, but instead have your eyes fixed on some point in the sky, some star that might be just as visible to me too, and that would be my new point for referencing you." _

_       "Relationships may be fatuous, and physics vacuous, but one's own sense of self never empty. You are more complete than you are alone when you're by yourself, so try to cheer up. It's always the safest bet to hold onto yourself tightly because you would never derelict yourself. The weathervane doesn't need to depend on anyone else to point out the direction for it because it's always steering its life in the way it ought to go. Deep down you've always known where you have to go, and I hope you finally find your way there."_

       About Quistis Trepe:

       _She is either flattering us by assuming that we're mature enough to understand her, or she's flattering herself by assuming that she's young enough to understand us.  Either way, the result is a horrific failure.  I think she wants me to grow a conscience, but by the time I am her age and have learned my lesson, the only thing I'll be growing is senile._

       About Rinoa Heartilly/Caraway: 

_       I can't rationalize this any other way.  I believe this is residual guilt that is still plaguing me surrounding the circumstances that led up to me delivering that intercom message the day before I left Balamb Garden for this assignment.  I know I didn't ask her to wait for me, but by not asking her to not wait, she will continue to do so.  And that is asking too much._

He felt the arms around his waist and tighten in response to the climbing velocity at which they were almost soaring over the Trabian fields.  Immediately his thoughts were turned to the girl hanging onto him from behind.

       About Merali ?:

_       So her name is Merali, apparently.  It's about time I found out.  I am utterly confused.  I hardly know her but it doesn't feel that way.  Once again I am a casualty of the classic battle between the my internecine thoughts and emotions.  I don't want to get too close for obvious reasons, but compared to everyone else I know she is just refreshing in her silence because she wasn't always fighting for every single word, or arguing over semantics or bad word choice.  Because she can't speak my language and possibly doesn't even comprehend it when it is spoken to her, I am under no pressure to say anything.  But I read that eighty percent of communication occurs through body language anyway, so even if I keep my mouth shut she should probably be getting the gist of everything I would have told her._

_       As dangerous a thought that this is, I wish Rinoa could be more like her.  Or maybe I just wish Rinoa were a little less like Rinoa._

       About Squall Leonhart:

_       Maybe I wish I was a little less like myself.  But then who would I be?  Whose life would I rather have?  What path would I rather follow, or do I even need to follow anything?_

       About Cerberus the GF:

       _I don't have split personalities.  Oh yes I do.  No I don't._

       About Diablos the GF:

       _I am the best Guardian Force on this planet.  I am loyal, devoted, unfaltering, dedicated, diligent, and totally underrated –_

       Squall scowled suspiciously when he figured out what was going on.

       _Get out of my head, you two_, he warned them with a mental check.

_       Sorry, boss_, Diablos voiced, _got a bit carried away there, but you know how hard it is to resist tapping into your thoughts every now and then, being junctioned to you and all.  I mean, it's not like these genie-wannabes have any intellectually stimulating conversation to offer._

       _Check out the scanner, Master_, the somber voice of Ifrit suddenly cut in. 

       Ifrit's words were hardly ever suspect.  Something was clearly wrong.

       Squall was about to key in a scan on the area from the motorbike dashboard when his command was interrupted by an incoming call from Nova Trabia Garden.

       "This is Leonhart," he answered.

       "Commander Leon –"

       _Watch out!  _Doomtrain blasted in his ears.  His head inside the safety helmet, the Guardian Force's words seemed to reverberate with ten times the decibel intensity.

       The front tire of the bike seemed to run over some awkward obstacle and he had to fight to regain control of the vehicle.  Unfortunately at their speed, recovery was impossible.  The best he could manage was to collapse the bike on its side and skid to safety.  Whatever momentum the friction from the bike and the ground could not neutralize, he and Merali would be making up by tumbling for tens of meters.

       The world around him spun like he was a vial sitting in a centrifuge.  When his neural and tactic sensors caught up with his optical apparatus, he could be sure that it would hurt like hell.

       _I wonder if Merali will be okay._

_       Better worry about yourself, Master_, Cerberus B reminded him.

       When everything had stopped moving, he safely reasoned that he had stopped moving.  He was clearly in shock because he was having a hard time lifting his head and determining whether or not the rest of his body was numb.  Directional references were useless, so it took him a while to find out which way was up and actually lift his head to look around.  He was met by a medley of scattered images that he could not focus on.

       Right before he threw up, he made out one of the snapshots in the visual kaleidoscope that was assaulting his senses.  A pack of at least three Ruby Dragons were stampeding on all fours towards him.  A little distance behind him was Merali whose body was alarmingly limp.

       The enemy would get the first strike.  He could see that right away.  In order to survive the volley, he would have to make some costly sacrifices.  He began calling out each of his GFs as shields.  No doubt they would all be wiped out by the dragons' breaths before they could perform their attack, but he had no other recourse.  Afterwards, he would have to take the pack on his own, assuming that he could get back on his feet and find his weapon, which was presumably still strapped to the damaged bike.

       The battle was only about to begin and he had already played out all the predetermined moves.

       He was going to lose, and he was going to die.

       The alpha male of the Red Dragon herd had come within its long-range striking distance.  Rather than continue forward and trample over him, it paused and let loose a jet of flame from its cavernous mouth.  This was joined by a second and third intensifying fountain of fire from the other two monsters.  The combined blasts of scorching breath broke over the bodies of the GFs who had managed to materialize protectively between them, and he saw their shadowy silhouettes slowly get incinerated by the illuminating conflagration that they blocked behind them.  The tendrils and sparks of the flame reached around the disintegrating GF flesh mass and clawed hungrily towards him.

       As it engulfed him, he thought he caught the movement of a white angel descending into the scene out from the corner of his eye.

* * ** *** ***** ********  
Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters.  Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible?  Thanks in advance.


	38. Setting 34: 1859 DAY 23, Deling City, Re

**Setting 34: 1859 DAY 23, Deling City, Red Light District, Vagabond's Vale Tavern, 2F**

_"For a nation which has an almost evil reputation_

_for bustle, bustle, bustle, and rush, rush, rush,_

_we spend an enormous amount of time_

_standing around in line in front of windows, just waiting."  
_

-Benchley, Robert

_Benchley – Or Else!_

_N_ext to Zell's pad, this was the most wretched dump that she had ever stayed in. Unfortunately it was also the closest hostel to the only police station in the precinct that handled both homicides and finding missing persons. Her late sister, until recently, turned out to be both. Of course, now that the Galbadian authorities had found her body, she was no longer considered missing.

Mina Charleston had come a long way in recuperating from the initial shock and devastation that had followed the totally uninteresting mail form that had notified her of her sister's death. Of course, without her personal confirmation, the local authorities could not close the case. And since they had no intention of paying for her trip halfway around Terra from Balamb to Galbadia, her to answer to the summons was in every sense a courtesy call. With the Balamb Library unable to give her a four-month's pay advance, Mina had to resort to joining an anti-Malboro campaign that virtually provided for all her transportation fares and meal costs.

The only other option would have been to borrow it from Zell, but a lump sum amount would have been a gift too onerous for a relationship not yet tied together by a stone. She did not doubt that he did not have the means since he was a level A SeeD, meaning his wages were more than four times her own.

That and he is probably going to get a hefty holiday bonus for defeating Ultimecia this year, she reflected further.

But she was glad that she didn't have to ask him for anything. It was hard enough as it was to get him to pay any real attention to her, "real" being more than just the courtesy compliment or a recital of his daily schedule. She had seen Zell's teammate Irvine Kinneas flirting with the other librarians, and for all its insincerity, it was at least more effort than her own boyfriend was putting into the scant bits of time that they had together.

_No_, she reaffirmed for the fourth time, _it was better not to have asked for any Gil._

One usually travels around the world with that kind of money with a partner on a luxury cruise. These circumstances were nothing of the kind. Besides, it was family business, and the last thing that she wanted to do was spoil the "Welcome Back from Time Compression" celebration they were throwing at Balamb Garden the night she left, even at the expense of not having any warm shoulder to cry on.

She could really use one right about now.

Perhaps it wasn't that the Galbadian police investigators were being deliberately unhelpful, but that they were merely incompetent. Nothing had turned up in the two weeks after the bodies had been found. All the details she had on the full-scale offings were leaked out, not released officially. Apparently her sister was involved, but not yet implicated, with one side or the other of two underground crime syndicates, both in the trafficking business – be it precious information, illegally manufactured or upgrades weapons, genetically modified chocoboes, illegally refined medicinal items, Guardian Force gene-splicing equipment, etc.

But the only suspect that the police had – the leader of the slaughtered gang who was the only one not accounted from among the bodies – had yet to be located in the professional, exhaustive countrywide search. Their only lead was leading them nowhere, and her having to nag at them to no avail in their waiting lounge day after day was becoming a nuisance to both parties.

Actually, it might have been partially her fault that she could not be of more help. Their not having a single clear photograph or profile of the suspect might have been remedied if she had not stupidly lost the photo that her sister had sent her a year or so before. Of course, the picture might have been taken long before it was sent to her, but at least it was something to go on. Also, the man in the photo could have been anyone, not necessarily the gang leader, but all these speculations were moot now that she could not produce it.

For the life of her she could find it among her luggage even though she remembered taking it out of her room in the Balamb residential quarters. If it was not here, then she must have dropped it along the way from there to Galbadia, halfway around Terra. It could be floating in the middle of the ocean or washed up on the shores of Cactuar Island for all she knew.

Regardless, being left out of the loop for the n-th time though she was sure that today there had been an unusual bustle at the station, she had decided to take things into her own hands.

Mina sat down on the bed in a position she had considerately selected for herself equidistantly far from both the unsightly bed sheet stain that had come with the room and the broken mattress spring. Then she reached into her handbag and took out the manilla folder that she had lifted from the public relation representative's desk while he was occupying himself with shouting at his equally unproductive subordinates. It all happened in an instant, and whether it was an act of courage or foolishness would have to be determined in consequentialist retrospect.

She flipped through the documents inside one by one until she realized that she did not have the expertise to decipher them, much less divulge their purpose. She seemed like maps or floor prints of various compounds. Those with typewriting on them were too technical for her as well. At length she sighed and replaced the folder and its contents back in her very plain handbag.

Her trip to Galbadia had not taught her very much about her sister or her lifestyle. However, in the more fashionable parts of the city, such as the one that had sprouted and flourished economically around the centrally-located Galbadia Mall, she had been re-educated about what it meant to live in the cosmopolitan, upper-tier society and to walk around with an upper-tier purse. Perhaps her third-tier, third-century bag was a dead giveaway of her rural Balamb lifestyle and Balamb means.

The glossy postcard that lied next to her desk lamp on the opposite side of the bed next to the headboard was reflecting a lamplight into the corner her eye. She leaned back and managed to pluck it off the table without standing up. Lying back across the bed and facing the ceiling, Mina held the postcard up and reread it.

It was addressed and sent from Winhill from five days before from a colleague she had met during the early stages of the anti-Malboro campaign before he parted ways with them to pick up a librarian's job, just like the one she had. Apparently Jer had wound up in Nova Trabia Garden.

_Nova Trabia Garden_, she repeated thoughtfully. _That is probably where Irvine and Zell are docked, alright._

Though Zell did not tell her of his new assignment at the party, she had reason to believe that she had found out about it before he had. On her way out of the ballroom, Headmaster Cramer was chuckling about environmental surveys with Mrs. Kramer. It was only in brief passing, and so she unintentionally overheard no more than that the two SeeDs would rendezvous with Commander Lionheart in Nova Trabia Garden after finishing their own scouting project.

Though she had not loitered around long enough to hear the length of the assignment, she estimated that they had probably completed it. As for her, it would not be long before the inspectors realized that the file was not in the office. Her time left in Galbadia was limited.

The last steam-liner that would ship off for Trabia Continent this evening was set to embark at nine. If she hurried now, she would make it to the port in time for an hour-stroll around the boardwalk. The ticket office would be closed by then, but she had the foresight to purchase a stub to reserve a seat for one aboard the _Marquessa_ earlier during the day. At their published speed, she calculated that the journey would take a day and a half, two at most, meaning she could disembark with at least a fresh new afternoon awaiting her.

Half an hour later, as her bus was passing the most gentry and posh sectors of the city, she looked out her window to admire the gated mansion that she had read in her Deling City introductory tour brochure belonged to General Caraway, one of the figureheads of the nation, and until recently not a very big-spender in the capital. News headlines would occasionally touch upon a few grand investments that he had made in the past weeks, but not having her own Gil to spend, she could not hop into the bandwagon and shadow the big players. If Galbadia would ever recover economically, the new wave of growth would have to be spearheaded by the military and political towers, the only ones with any influence and capital to burn for fun.

All the lights in the sector blacked out, the traffic lights included. The startled bus-driver braked fast and her ride lurched to a screeching halt and the one other passenger aboard shrieked. Luckily, though, the traffic had long since dissipated at that hour, so there weren't any other vehicles on the street that might have run into them.

Mina readjusted her bags next to her on the seat and then lifted her wrist up next to her ear and listened carefully. Her watch was still ticking, so the power blackout it was not due to an EMP attack. She sighed in relief. If war was going to take this country, the hawks should at least have the decency to let her get off the materialistic rock before the first shot rang out.

The bus resumed it course, a little slower to be sure, but eventually they found the streets brightly lit eight blocks further down. Turning back to look at the Caraway mansion one last time, Mina Charleston noted that it the palace of lights was now pitch black. Facing forwards again, she settled back in her seat and found it more comfortable than it was a minute ago. The thought that perhaps even the cosmopolitan, upper-tier elites had their moments of helplessness was somehow reassuring.

The rosy warm feeling lasted for about two seconds before the bus crashed into an unforgiving block of concrete the size of the sky and she was hurtled headlong out of her seat towards the front windshields.

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters. Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible? Thanks in advance.

**_Recommended Background Music Song List for Division Two_-**

**Setting 27**: Mass Missle's **"Ima Made Nandomo"**

**Setting 28**: Nagase Tomoya's **"Hitori bocchi no Haburashi" **(_Mukodono_ OST)

**Setting 29**: Raiko's **"ALIVE"**

**Setting 30**: TiA's **"Ryuuesi"**

**Setting 31**: Kumi Koda's **"1000 Words"** (or "Sen no Kotoba") from Final Fantasy X-2

**Setting 32**: WANDS' **"Don't Cry"**

**Setting 33**: Hound Dog's **"Rocks"**

**Setting 34**: WANDS' **"Sekai-chyuu Dare Yori Kitto"**

**Setting 35**: Tasuku's **"Little by Little - Kanashimi wo Yasashisa Ni"**

**Setting 36**: Asian Kung-fu Generation's **"Haruka Kanata"**

**Setting 37**: Akihiko Matsumoto's (or Oda Yuji's) **"Moon Light" **(_Odoru Daisousasen _OST)

**Setting 38**: Oda Yuji's **"Love Somebody"**

**Setting 39**: WANDS' **"Sekai ga Owaru made wa"**

**Setting 40**: Shela's **"Days"**

**Setting 41**: Akihiko Matsumoto's (or Oda Yuji's) **"Moon Light" **(_Odoru Daisousasen _OST)

**Setting 42**: Akihiko Matsumoto's (or Oda Yuji's) **"Moon Light" **(_Odoru Daisousasen _OST)

**Setting 43**: Orange Range's **"Viva Rock"**

**Setting 44**: Akihiko Matsumoto's (or Oda Yuji's) **"Moon Light" **(_Odoru Daisousasen _OST)

**Setting 45**: Sambomaster's **"Seishun Kyosokyoku"**

**Setting 45.5**: Akihiko Matsumoto's **"Rhythm And Police" **(_Odoru Daisousasen _OST)

**Setting 45**: Seo Jin Young's **"Uh Jyuh Myuh" **(_Summer Scent _OST)

**Epilogue**: **"Ending Theme- Tidus and Yuna" **from Final Fantasy X

**Setting 47**: Akihiko Matsumoto's (or Oda Yuji's) **"Moon Light" **(_Odoru Daisousasen _OST)

**Chapter-By-Chapter Plot Recapitulation: **Cagnet's** "Here**** We Are Again"**

**Postscript**: Yuki's **"Home Sweet Home"** AND F4's **"Yen Hua De Ji Jie"**

**_PuPu's Saga_ Miscellany**: Utada Hikaru's** "Can You Keep A Secret"**


	39. Setting 35: 1859 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Gar

**Setting 35: 1859 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Garden Main Lobby 1F**

"_Therefore get up; defeat your breathlessness_

_with spirit that can win all battles if_

_the body's heaviness does not deter it."_

-Alighieri, Dante

_Inferno XXIV_

_A_lmost seeing someone is the same as not seeing that person. Whether or not almost knowing someone is the same a not knowing them is something I have not yet figured out.

Match leaned back against the lee of one of the twelve Moon Stone-embossed pillars that circled the voluminous chamber of the atrium. If the wide space between each pillar had not been capped by tri-lobed archways and corresponding triangular gables, no doubt the ceiling would have collapsed already. But the interior designer and the architect seemed to have compared their notes adequately. Though he did not know them personally, based on his estimation of the structural integrity of the area, he was willing to trust them with his life for another thirty seconds as he loitered in the Garden lobby and counted how much Gil was in the money pouch of the Balamb rascal he had just lifted from the infirmary. It was hardly anything. From what he knew of SeeDs, they were paid well. This blonde man, then, was an outsider, just like he was.

Match had made it a rule to steal from the handicapped or invalids, but "capital boy" and he had history. It wasn't so much to actually earn anything but to spite him. Instead, the paltry net gain was massive disappointment, the regret of having actually put effort into depriving the man of the wallet, and a bent Ribbon that smelled like a sweaty pocket._Totally useless. If I just shoved this in a coin-locker, would it be worth the Gil to open the locker back up and retrieve it?_

"'Garden of Good-byes'," he mouthed bitterly. "'Only lovers can come here, and having been here, part their own ways'." _I should have socked him while he was standing there so smugly with his sword._

That was the curse that the prick had revealed in their presence two or three summers ago in "Shawl's Stone" while he was laying on the grass with Sujie.

_Back when she was still alive_, he thought with a deluge of unspeakable sadness falling over him. _If he hadn't opened his big mouth and said that, maybe she would still be alive._

Match had just ducked out of sight before the blonde woman looked up back by the quad. How had she detected that he was watching her?

Match rapped his forehead with his knuckle and then felt the tinge as the pain from the recent bullet wound raced through his body. _Why am I running from her anyway? I mean, I took a freaking bullet for her._

A more interesting if confounding question was why he had been tailing her here and there as she went about her daily duties. Perhaps it was because he had nothing else to do. Perhaps it was because he had been relieved of all of his own duties the minute every member of his gang besides him was gunned down.

In any case, from the interpersonal communicative behavior patterns that he had observed in her day-to-day dealings, two distinctly groups of evidence had emerged. The first category included the junior-ranked officers and lackeys who took extreme care to pay lip service to her and groveled before her as behooved those of their ranks on the power hierarchy. The second group was comprised of a the young female trainees and a few males, including the two – the tattooed boxer and the cowboy – who he had seen at the basketball courts that day the trigger-happy foolio tried to shoot him and only succeeded through stupidity, as well as his own uncharacteristic impulse to be a hero and save the damsel at that instant.

The social data led Match to conclude that the blonde officer was unusually high up on the administrative ladder and had ascended in a fashion so quick as to spark resentment among those of the same gender. That and that there had to be someone in an even higher-ranked position who the subordinates liked better than her. This other person he presumed to be Squall Lionheart, the name that the underclassmen basketball players were throwing around while harassing their blonde superior. They had called her "Rinoa," but judging by how easily they were fooled by his own false assumption of the Lionheart name, they were not very familiar with either personage and could have been mistaken about her identity as well. At any rate, the blonde was not the "Rinoa C." that he was looking for.

Match clenched his fist in frustration. The only clue he had to his gang's massacre and Sujie's murder was the intended recipient of the last package he delivered. Had he not passed it on to Sujie in the last leg of the trip and just delivered it himself…

Either a third party wanted the package for itself or either the patron or the recipient wanted to erase all traces of the transaction after the transfer was completed. They were so deep in the middle of something they didn't understand, but ignorance was a virtue, a testament of confidentiality when it came to the trafficking business. "Quick, Cheap, and Punctual," that was their motto.

_Well, maybe not cheap_, he reconsidered.

In the end, though, the blonde could have been a "Rinoa," but he had frequently overheard her addressors refer to her as "Trepe," so at best she made a "Rinoa T."

And so he was back to square one. Until he had a better lead, he really had nothing better to do than to amuse himself by watching her walk around all day and get stepped on, walked over, or talked down to. These acts would alternate with interactions in which she would retaliate on an unfortunate, inferior party onto whom she would project all her previous grievances. It was really fun to watch. The longer he continued to observe this, the more certain he was that he would be able to map out the entire social hierarchy of the Garden based strictly on the differences in social interaction.

Today, after leaving the quad, she had made an unexpected move and headed to the infirmary rather than go about her regular business – call up the lower staff team leaders and access their progress, inventory changes, and so forth. Truth be told, he had been a bit surprised when she hadn't disappeared into the room for more than a minute before the alarms in the corridors went off and she darted back out with a panicked look. If the alarms had nothing to do with her, it would have been too coincidental.

After ascertaining that he was not to reason for the alarm and that the security sensors were not the ones who had been triggered, he surmised that perhaps she had pulled the alarm in reaction to some imminent danger inside the infirmary. At that point he decided to have a look for himself. Swinging down from the archway by bounding back and forth between the corridor walls , Match descended lightly and swung himself into the infirmary using the top of the outer door frame. He landed without a sound about two feet from the makeshift stretcher-bed that was being occupied by a blonde bloke with a battle scar on his face.

_Quick scan around the room...no one conscious but Mr. Blue-eyes here. No sign of danger, natural, mechanical, artificial, elemental, or – wait, Holy Shiva!_

Match's gaze shifted back to the young man who, even as he lay listlessly on the bed, smacked of a timeless grudge. The man had looked up and saw him, too, and his eyes had widened in sudden recognition almost instantly.

_I know you!_ the two sets of pupils seemed to bellow in that locked moment, the intensity of which nearly blocked out the blaring sirens overhead.

The last thing Match had expected to see was a familiar in Nova Trabia, much less...

"Hodmimir's Forest!" he exclaimed as it dawned on him their once and only meeting place.

"Third-wheel Raggedy-Andy?" Seifer mouthed back incredulously. Perhaps it was the anesthetic playing tricks with his head.

"Capital boy," Match returned the greeting with tantamount iciness. _Except he didn't have that scar as I remembered him. And no sword._

Seifer motioned to the bed he was lying on.

"This doesn't change anything. You try one of those kissy Galbadian greetings and I will gut you," he warned. _Just when I had nearly forgotten about Yumey, why him? Why now?_

Having reasoned up to here, Seifer made a puzzled face. _Why here?_

"Relax, Balamb," Match shot back, "Thirty Tiamats couldn't drag me within three decimeters of that juicy yapper of yours." _He is still in that same outfit, too._

Seifer gave him the bird while thinking in disgust, _Untrendy!_ _That prick is still in the same worn-out costume._

Suddenly nostalgic, Match began to jeer, "You know, two year's ago, that was the most romantic way I had ever seen a couple break up. You should teach a class." _You couldn't have picked a better time and place to jinx my life, dipwad._

Seifer made an effort to get out of the bed and lunge at his addressor, but finding the effort beyond his capacity, he grudgingly fell back onto his pillow. _Now that I know you so much better, I am glad you were there to hear it. I hope your relationship falls to Cerberus too._

He was on the verge of dishing out a retaliatory insult when the whole room shook from an impact from outside the Garden. _What the Ifrit is going on out - hey, wait!_

Match had apparently grown tired of meaningful reminiscing and swiped Seifer's wallet. The movement had been almost too quick for Seifer's eyes to follow, but he was just used to dodging Squall's gun-blade flicks towards his eyes and vitals enough to spot the blindingly quick approach, legerdemain, and retreat. Half an instant later, the thief was gone.

_Damn!_ Seifer sat up in consternation but then doubled over in pain. _Yumey and Shojora's Ribbon!_

The Gil that he carried around with him could hardly afford anyone a decent meal but the Almasy heirloom was unique. Perhaps storing it in his wallet over the years and thinking it was the safest place to keep it had backfired on him. _He made off with my Ribbon! _

Seifer banged his hand against the bed railing angrily and swore in the Tonberry dialect to smite his offender. _I am going to skin that bastard. Right after I kill my father's assassin. And Cary-Kay, and..._

His incendiary oath was interrupted by his fourth visitor of the afternoon. Lifting his head off the pillow, Seifer turned his attention to the curious, little head peeking in on the room, just barely visible from the side of the doorframe.

The set of pink, round eyes belonged to young lady no more than his age with a shocking head of moon-silver hair.

Acknowledging the presence of an audience, Almasy shifted back into confidence mode.

"I'd give you my autograph except I think my wrist is broken," he explained, having to raise his voice over the sirens outside.

The verbal extension brought out a giggle from the addressee and lightened the atmosphere enough for her to step into the infirmary.

This response was encouragement enough for the invalid to take a stab and guess that she was but a relatively new trainee who may have heard of his name and exploits back on the Disciplinary Committee while bearing him no grudge for the detonation of the old Trabia Garden. Sensing an opportune chance to impress a potential fan for life, he grinned amicably.

"You know, being your _sempai_ and all," he swaggered, "in situations like this, I have to advise you to lock the door and take cover here beside me."

She smiled, clearly amused.

"I don't know what is going on," the girl cried innocently. "Everyone is in a panic...some kind of emergency."

"Yup," Almasy agreed, "and it is bound to get very, very scary out there."

She put her hands over her mouth and made a frightened sound.

"We'd better be careful," he added. "I've been in enough of these situations to know that nowhere is safe."

"In here least of all, right?" the girl probed with a knowing look.

Seifer swelled with pride and flashed a smile, mistaking her comment as being meant to flatter him. Blinded by his perception that he was the most dangerous enemy to have, he did not grasp the true meaning of her words even after the overhead lights went out and the darkness engulfed him.

Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters. Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible? Thanks in advance.


	40. Setting 36: 1907 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Gar

**Setting 36: 1907 DAY 23, Nova Trabia Garden Basketball Courts**

_"The shades of night were falling fast,  
As though an Alpine village passed  
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,  
A banner with the strange device,  
Excelsior!_

_His brow was sad; his eye beneath,  
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,  
And like a silver clarion rung  
The accents of that unknown tongue,  
Excelsior!"_

-Wordsworth-Longfellow, Henry

"Excelsior"

"_D_id I mention how screwed we were?" Zell asked. _I probably don't even need to say it._

"Only five seconds ago," Irvine replied caustically, "and for the sixth time."

"Focus, you two!" Quistis snapped, pointing at the monstrosity gliding immediately overhead. _You too, Quis. You're going to have to focus and come up with something ingenious if everyone is to survive this._

_They just refuse to die! _Zell wanted to growl, becoming more and more troubled as he realized how ineffective his physical attacks seemed. The present host of Blue Dragons were even tougher than the beefed-up one he had to tackle in the forest to save Pearl. Even with Irvine's help, they had only managed to cow three of the forty or so.

"The scans I have been doing say they are all above level 60," Selphie informed them wearily, "with unexpected high defense quotients."

"Gee, you think?" Irvine grumbled sarcastically, miffed at having to stop and reload his rifle yet again. He took a split-second to survey the rest of the grounds and could hardly contain a worried sigh. The battle that had just began looked like it was about to end. The line of lower level SeeDs they had fallen or were hopelessly surrounded. Garden forces were outnumbered three to one, and ideally if each of them could take down three brutes before succumbing, then they would have a chance.

As discouraging to his students as he knew it would sound, coming from an Instructor, Irvine cursed aloud. They were nowhere near that three to one target ratio. The four of them, all level A SeeDs, were having enough trouble together handling just one of the enemy.

_I keep telling Cid that they need a head-count, bounty incentive for killing monsters. The hourly wage system just won't cut it_, Trepe thought in exasperation.

She turned and scowled at Selphie and the rest of the officer crew.

"What are you still doing here?" Quistis shouted at them. "Spread out, each of you, with two lower level SeeDs in separate teams of three."

"I want that purple-haired one with the scythe," Irvine called quickly.

Zell followed the direction that Irvine was pointing in. _Hey, no fair! I wanted that one!_

"Hyne take it all! This isn"t recess dodgeball, you two!" Quistis screamed. "We aren't picking teams in turns!" _To Diablos with them! Neither is close enough to kick!_

"Got any handy tactics you would suggest we implement, Quis?" Irvine called back, already sprinting towards the purple-haired SeeD.

Seeing Irvine taking off, Zell vowed that he wouldn't be outdone and began racing towards the same target.

_Not so recklessly! _she beseeched them silently. She flung her whip out to mid-distance and stung a flier who had seen the two men making their way across the court and would have swooped down to intercept them. The lash across the snout brought the creature to Irvine's attention and bought him enough of a delay to roll out of the way of the monster's jaws. Lying flat against the concrete, Irvine brought the Exeter level with one hand in line with beast as it came around for a second bite. When he found himself staring straight down the barrel and directly into the hungry yellow eyes, he pulled the trigger. A quick explosion erupted and the enemy reeled back into a dive straight into the ground where it remained thrashing in pain.

The two over-adventurous undergraduate female medics who were huddling beneath the archway entrance to the quad jittered in delight.

"He's so cool!" they exclaimed in shrill voices, waving their hands to fan off the sensational, woozy heat they were feeling. Suddenly aware that they might be inviting a danger far greater than the pack of oversouled Blue Dragons, the two girls rediscovered their modesty and checked to see if Instructor Tilmitt was out of hearing range. Seeing that she was, the medics sighed in relief and returned to staring at their idol.

"Good call, Irvine," Quistis shouted from the other side of the court. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at the other SeeDs, "There's too many of them! Don't concentrate on killing them, just blind as many as you can!"

"Yo, Zell," Irvine called out to the SeeD nearest to him, "you got any ammo on you? My inventory is getting cleared out pretty quickly."

Zell nodded hastily and dug in his pockets like a gopher on a sugar-high. Not to let him stand there in complete vulnerability, Irvine moved towards him and covered him with his last three bullets. They found themselves pressed back to back in the midst of a nightmarish cyclone of winged serpents circling overhead, around, and making fly-by swipes from all angles. The forty seemed like thousands, swarm-like, clustering here and there, one replacing the one before it. The hum of locust wings spiced with the piercing shriek of fanged demons and sprinkled with lost shouts of wounded men.

If the number of bodies hitting and staying on the ground was growing, it was due to their numbers, not of the dragons. Incredulous, Irvine surveyed the scene quickly. _No healers, so are they regenerating themselves?_

Indeed, none of his shots seemed to land on any previously injured individual. _We can't kill any of them, not even one this way, if we don't concentrate all our firepower on–_

Irvine's eyes widened in panic for the first time and looked around for Quistis. It had just dawned on him why sending a squadron of a single creature type, normally disadvantageous, was a particular threat in this situation.

Not seeing Quistis anywhere, he settled for Zell.

"Yo, Dincht," Irvine said nervously, "I think we got a problem."

"Well, duh," his tattooed companion responded.

"No, no, our battle plan is all wrong," Irvine explained. "They're doing tag-team, changing places so that the wounded mutts fall back immediately after taking hits. We're always going to face a fresh enemy, and we're never going to drop any of them." _I can't believe I didn't notice it until now. It's because they all look the same and are circling about so quickly. One disappears back into formation and when the next one breaks out in perfect timing, it looks like the first one._

"Our battle plan, you said?" Zell asked, almost in a scoff. "What plan? We don't even have a strategy!"

Having found two rounds of Pulse Ammo and thirty normal ones, he hurriedly shoved them into Irvine's extended, open palm.

Then, looking overhead and finding that Irvine was right, he cursed beneath his breath. The dragons were indeed rotating, but the job-shifts were so synchronized and fluid that it looked as if no rotation was taking place.

Both Kinneas and Dincht took a moment to stare open-mouthed at the awesome coordination of what they had until today mistakenly considered mindless brutes.

The two exchanged glances.

"We need a new leader," the SeeDs said in harmony.

They turned their eyes back to the battlefield for a second survey.

"We need a new army," the SeeDs muttered their assessment together.

The next wave of dragons had broken circling formation and began their descent towards them. To their left, twenty paces away, a heavily injured and isolated fighter was calling desperately for help. Realizing that everyone was occupied and that it was probably his own ill fortune for getting separated from any allies, his mind stopped reasoning and he relapsed into a paralyzing panic of unsightly shrieks. Even as Irvine moved his gun over to shield the SeeD, the man was cut down from behind by a different attacker.

"Damn it! That's another pay-cut for all of us," Irvine swore angrily. _Even if I survive this, Cid is going to kill me._

Zell grunted, indicating agreement. _I didn't know him personally, but that one was a Level 12. They took freaking forever to train. We're getting massacred out here!_

Far from being insensitive to death, Irvine was merely aware of and resigned to the fact that the grisly business they had just witnessed would not be the only fatality on the grounds today. To lose composure over a single instance would needlessly increase the body count.

"Irvine," Zell said over his shoulder, "I freestyle better without having to lean against anything. We need to split up and find our own support mini-teams before there aren't enough of them left to form teams with."

"Roger that," Irvine concurred. "Just make sure they cover you long enough for you to take an enemy out, one-on-one. Once you engage, don't let it get back up in the sky or you'll be facing a brand new one, exhausting yourself with nothing to show for it."

Zell nodded and took off towards two other SeeDs who had surrounded and gone back-to-back for reduce their respective defense loads. Along the way he had to somersault over a head-on tackle and slide under a subsequent glider who would have taken off his head.

"You two," he called out to the long spear and dual dagger users when they were within hearing range, "cover me and each other while I take them out one at a time, got it?"

Obviously relieved by his arrival and invigorated by the prospect of fighting along side one of the legendary personages who had traveled through Time Compression and lived to tell about it, the younger SeeDs actually mustered enough spirit for nervous smiles and nodded.

"It's boogie-time!" Zell hooted, amazing anyone who still had a sane grasp of the events on the field.

Having made sure that Zell was safely settled, Irvine began looking around for his own small squad. It was exceedingly difficult to identify any comrades in the obscuring cloud of enemies except for those who were already lying lifelessly on the ground here and there with various body parts missing.

_It's times like these that I wish I had taken up two revolvers instead of the rifle during my initial training_, Irvine regretted.

Just as the thought was souring in his mouth, one of survivors came running up to him.

"Tell me you're a long-range weapon specialist," Irvine yelled as they closed the distance between them.

"Bow and arrow, sir," the underclassman answered hopefully.

"Good enough," Irvine replied. "If you're carrying any bullets, I'll take your next SeeD level promotion exam for you."

The archer managed a tense chuckle and fumbled around in his belt pouch before taking out twenty Fire-Shot bullets and handing them to the eager Garden Instructor.

Irvine eyed his new toys hungrily and then looked up at the gloomy sky, blotched out by the scaled ravens of carnage immortal. His sights closed in on a weaker flier with a clipped wing.

"Who feels like chicken tonight?" he mouthed and loaded the bullets without looking away from his next target. To his second, he ordered, "Cover me, soldier."

As the archer began releasing one unerring arrow after another at any that approached them, he communicated with a shaky voice, "I don't think we received the proper training for this contingency, Instructor."

"If you live through this, you can file to have half of your tuition returned at the end of the semester," Irvine offered wryly.

Cocking the gun he pulled high and wailed on the already hurt dragon. The malicious stream of bullets made a hole in the sky that only closed after the beast dropped to the court floor, cracking the pavement.

Satisfied with his work, he blew the smoke from the barrel and struck a Napoleonic pose. For a minute he thought he heard two flustered cheers of "He's so cool!" in the distance, but he quickly dismissed it as mere ringing in his ears from the gun shots.

There was a rush of air from behind him. Sensing danger and hearing the labored flap of wings, he ducked just barely in time from the unforgiving claws of an unscrupulous sneak attacker in his blind-spot. The elongated nails dug into his cowboy hat and carried it off of his head.

"Noooooooooooooooo!" he hollered into the far-echoing wilderness. _Stella's hat!_

But the hat stuck to the creature's talon was a perfect give-away as to which fiend was culprit. Irvine waited until it was thirty meters away before showering it with heartfelt lead compliments. The monster convulsed and then fell three flights, nearly hitting a figure dressed in bright yellow.

_Selphie! _Irvine inhaled sharply upon recognition.

The transient moment of happiness was replaced by a shocking realization. Impossible from Selphie's view to read, from a distance Irvine could see that two dragons from separate formations were mirroring each other's movements. He quickly read the trajectory of their inverted parabolic dive and saw that they were going to try to sandwich her. Even if she did notice one in time to stop it, the other would smash into her from behind.

"Selphie!" he hollered and waved with both hands over his head. "Look out!"

Somehow or another she heard her name being called, but the rest of his speech was apparently garbled. She took a second to look in his direction curiously but failed to see what he was trying with his gun to point to. In the end, Selphie took it for a good luck hail and waved back cutely with both hands.

"I hope she gets eaten," one of the female medics whispered to the other.

"Yeah, skimpy and yellow are soooo out of fashion," the other Irvine-worshipper replied.

The clasped their hands together and waited in eager anticipation of the removal of their greatest obstacle of happiness.

Still ignorant of the peril she was in, Selphie had perchance noticed that the retired dragon that had fallen at her feet earlier was carrying something on its foot.

_Irvine's hat! _she made out, and put down her nunchakus so as to be better able to pull it off of the stiff cadaver. _That must be why he's waving. He wants to me keep his hat safe for until the end of the battle._

Suddenly she blushed at an alternative realization. _Maybe it's the other way around. He wants his hat to keep me safe until the end of the battle._

Selphie felt and rush of emotion and reflected gleefully that it was his favorite hat that he hated being parted with. Hugging it close to her bosom, she swore that she would even mend the hole in it for him after the fight.

"What in tarnations is she doing?" Irvine shouted angrily. He was so furious that he did not realize that he was holding the lower level SeeD by the collar and shaking him.

"Um, I don't know, sir," the shaken archer tried to cut in, "but I could use some help here with maintaining the perimeter." _I could use some oxygen too…_

Kinneas let go of the lad and then grabbed his grade-A, salon-treated hair with both hands and ruffled the make in frustration. Things were happening too quickly, his responsibilities too many, his options too few, and the odds stacked too formidably against him. His own share of enemies closing in from all sides, he was at a loss as to how best to free Selphie from the trap already set in motion. By his estimation, she had no more than four seconds before the two monsters collided and broke all the bones of her petite frame.

_It's now or never_, he reckoned.

He called out to his Guardian Force, Jumbo Cactuar, to begin the sequence for full blanket coverage and pointed counter-attack, temporarily freeing them from defense duty. As he was doing this, he dropped to one knee and brought the Exeter level with his shoulder. There was only one bullet left in the barrel and though he had the ammunition to do it, there would be no time to reload. Everything would have to ride on the next shot.

Not meaning to disturb the superior SeeD, the young archer held his tongue and refrained from asking Irvine how he planned on stopping two speed-maxed, charging Blue Dragons with a single bullet. It seemed impossible, especially with mere Normal Ammo.

_Maybe if he had refined two of them into a Double Shot, she might have a chance_, he thought, heart pumping in overdrive and sweating profusely.

"This is where you learn something useful that they don't teach you in the certified Trepe manuals, junior," Irvine rasped with a slightly drier mouth than usual and clearing his sights. He zoned out the background noise, factored in the wind, adjusted for the distance, and, lest it affect his shot with its jostle, calmed his heartbeat by counting down to himself. _Three…two…one…_

A split second later the fated round was fired and all three underclassmen spectators gasped as it found its target.

Nearly an eighth of a kilometer away, Selphie Tilmitt was knocked off her feet and thrown back two meters at impact. Clutching her cleanly pierced left shoulder, she fell with a pained cry, the spurts of blood from the wound escaping between her fingers and leaving a parabolic trail of red spray.

With no buffer in between them, the two dragons smashed straight into each other at full speed with a thunderous clap and the snapping of vertebrae and ripping of wing cartilage audibly erupted. Judging from the sight and sound, it was a safe bet that the two were permanently immobilized.

"Haha!" the young SeeD cried, jumping up and down. "You did it, Instructor Kinneas. I don't believe it, but you did it!"

_Actually_, the rifleman reasoned soberly, _we were just lucky that Selphie had not summoned Pandemona in that time frame. The GF would have taken the bullet and Selphie would have gone bumper to bumper between those freight trains._

Still, he could not be more satisfied with the result. Irvine closed his eyes and inhaled for the first time in a long time. Had he kept his eyes open and looked back towards the main Garden compound, he would have seen two very disappointed underclasswomen medics bemoaning themselves of their tough luck and sobbing on each other's shoulders in bitter disbelief.

Not losing any more time than it took for the breath of relief, Irvine motioned for the archer to shoot with him together. The summoning preparations having finished, the Jumbo Cactuar was sailing down from the sky and they synched their weapons together to finish off as many targets as they could in the time that the GF took in maiming them. After it was finished and phase-shifting out of their plane, five fresh dragon hides decorated the devastated basketball court.

Exhausted, Irvine looked over to check on his friends. Zell and his two had managed to pin three down without the help of any Guardian Forces or magic. In light of Zell's obvious disadvantage of being close-range combat weapon pitted against fliers, it was a remarkable accomplishment. Quistis and a stray SeeD that she had picked up had, as a duo, retired six dragons with the help of Shiva, who Irvine saw de-materializing back into the netherworld. The icy deity paused to blow him a kiss when she caught him looking, and then vanished.

The tide was turning, but not significantly. Their own numbers had dwindled down to eight in total with twenty-odd dragons still lunging at them without respite. Somehow Quistis and the other SeeD made their way to Selphie's side before she could be picked off. The bullet wound had saved her life, but at the heavy cost of decommissioning her from the remainder of combat.

Irvine rubbed his forehead and resumed loading his rifle. He was down to his last refill. Looking over at his companion's quiver, he realized that together there would only be enough firepower to mount one final volley. After that, it would be up to the GFs and the other two teams. He, Selphie, and the archer would become deadweight with no conceivable way for the five of them to take on the twenty enemies.

Irvine cocked his gun.

_Nothing has changed much since the day I watched Stella die_, he figured sadly. _There are still parts of the battle in which I am completely useless._

The buzzard-like reptiles had finished regrouping.

"Instructor Kinneas," the SeeD beside him cautioned, "Here they come again."

The tone of his voice told Irvine all he needed to know. _We don't have a prayer, do we?_

"I'm sorry I can't take that next SeeD examination for you," Irvine apologized earnestly as he raised his gun skyward.

"And I'm sorry I wasn't more useful to you, sir," the other responded dejectedly. "I've let you and Commander Leonhart down, and wasted your time with my training."

Irvine shook his head. _If Squall could be here and hear you say that, he would probably demote himself two levels out of guilt._

"You have nothing to apologize for, SeeD," Irvine replied. "It's been a privilege to fight with you." _Where the Ifrit is Squall, anyway?_

"The honor was all mine, sir," the SeeD answered.

The first new wave of bombardments from the dragons was well in the optimal firing range, but neither moved a finger.

"You know, I never asked for your name, soldier," Kinneas commented with a tinge of embarrassment.

The SeeD nodded after the non-combat-oriented question registered and was processed in his mind.

"I was in the Mercenary Ethics 101 seminar you led last week, sir," he replied. "You never did call on me in there."

From Quistis' view, Irvine and the other boy were in trouble. The frequency of their firing had decreased dramatically in the last few minutes following their brilliant but thoughtlessly ill-rationed projectile bash they'd unleashed during Jumbo Cactuar's attack. After witnessing a few more shots, Quistis realized that they had stopped firing altogether and were passively dodging the enemy's strikes. Pretty soon the potshots would turn into full assailments once they picked up on the clue whose conclusion Quistis was already dreading.

Indeed, the fair distance that the dragons had kept during the stages in which the SeeDs' retaliation was possible was already closing. In addition, a dense cluster of six or more of them had taken the airspace around the main exit from the court into the Garden, cutting off their retreat. The secondary exit to the garage was even farther away from where Irvine was haplessly stranded.

_They can't get out of there in time even to make a run for it_, she judged. _But maybe I can buy them enough time to make a run towards me._

_Honey_, Shiva nudged her, _you're bleeding_.

She was referring to the nasty cut on Quistis' forearm. She hadn't been nearly as agile as she thought she was in evading a previous attack.

_Don't worry about it. _Quistis dismissed the concern. _It's just a scratch._

_Still_, the GF pouted, _you should get it checked for rabies once we get back. Maybe a tetanus shot or two would help. Otherwise, you'll beginning slobbering like Cerberus and that would just be ick–_

"Shiva," she ordered aloud, "I need you to give us more cover again, but this time aim your Diamond Dust in a column towards those bastard lizards surrounding Irvine." _And please, for once, could you just screw your GF calisthenics and skip straight to the damage-dealing part?_

Instead of listening to Shiva's complaints about how warming-up was necessary to avoid possible muscle injury, Quistis used the time to indicate to the younger SeeD that she needed him to carry Selphie and to follow her lead. He nodded and heaved her onto his shoulder.

Retracting her whip, Trepe made a break towards Irvine, praying that he would look around and realize that his only viable option was to consolidate their numbers. It was probably too much to hope too that Zell would catch on to this last-ditch effort and act accordingly. An eighth of a kilometer would be a fatiguing haul in the brief window of time that Shiva could afford her.

In the midst of all of this, Selphie's new globally-active Dokomo cell phone started ringing.

_Just what we needed_, Quistis thought vehemently. _Another distraction._

"Can't you reach into your pocket and turn that off for a minute, Selphie?" she snapped, making no effort to hide her annoyance.

"But it's MY Dokomo!" Selphie huffed petulantly. Unfortunately, she overexerted herself and pulled a muscle. Lapsing into a groan, she only managed to finish her appraisal half-heartedly. "It works wherever."

_This is so childish_, Quistis supposed, feeling an urge to hold her head and massage her temples.

Then something amazing happened. Even before Shiva could unleash her ice attack, Quistis saw Zell and his party dashing towards the center of the field and closing the distance between all three teams. She wondered briefly whether he was moving in reaction to her movement or because he too noticed that Irvine was in dire straits. More important, though, was the matter of whether or not Irvine would pick up on this last-minute plan. The puzzle was no good without its final corner.

_Come on, Irvine_, she tried furiously to project her thoughts. _Try to read us. It's page 87, paragraph 3, clause 2 in my tactics manual for Hyne's sake! This is back to basics!_

"Don't worry, Quisty," moaned Selphie reassuringly from behind her, clearly conscious of the bumpy ride she was having on the SeeD's shoulder as they trekked the spatial gap. "Irvy'll do it. I know he will. He's brighter than he looks."

Somewhat encouraged by her remark though not exactly convinced by her line of reasoning, Quistis found a renewed burst of energy and was able to pick up the pace. An instant later she felt an acute coolness from bursts of ice passing by overhead. Once they reached their target location, they would be indiscriminating in taking down all life forms in the sector.

_Come on, Irvine, get out of there!_

Shiva's thoughts echoed in her own mind on how this plan could backfire if he didn't look over at this instant and let this final indicator tip him off. There was no guarantee otherwise that the launched shards of crystal ice wouldn't land on him as well.

_Oh, dear_, Shiva worried, _Maybe I should have waited a bit longer. Now Irvy only has about thirty seconds to clear the area. I hope his feet work faster than his mind._

"Or, that he runs, more smoothly, than he talks," Quistis muttered between breaths.

Selphie chuckled weakly.

"That's not possible," she sighed. "At best the two are the same speed – when he runs his mouth off."

Shiva either did not understand the joke or chose to ignore it because she made no other mental-comment other than, _ETA is fifteen seconds._

Just as Quistis feared the worse, level A SeeD and hotshot marksman Irvine Kinneas obliged and looked over his shoulder. Upon discerning the incoming missile composition, there was a half-second of hesitation during which he turned his head to the side to verify his guess with Zell's own displacement, and then another half-second to call to his subordinate.

As if by miracle, the two picked up their feet and started making their way towards Quistis.

Trepe let out sigh and Selphie smiled when she heard Zell's war hoot.

"That," Quistis described for Selphie, "was a close – Oh, holy Hyne…"

Zell's party almost stopped completely in their tracks as well.

"What?" Selphie asked, sensing them stopping.

When she lifted her head, she saw that the front line of Shiva's ice shards had already knocked down a few of the dragons out of flight formation. The traffic overhead was so heavy that the disorientation of a few was enough to instigate numerous collisions throughout the pack. One of the out of control dragons had been knocked out by a neighbor and from a five-story altitude crash-landed on the poor SeeD just a step and a half behind Irvine. He went down with a stiff cry.

Quistis could not tell the extent of the injury from that far away, and, suddenly remembering that she had been running but had stopped, resumed the scuttle towards the unspoken rendezvous point. Zell's contingent was slower in responding, but had begun moving as well.

_Honey, what is he doing? _Shiva asked Quistis curiously, moving to various spots around Quistis' head for a better view.

Irvine had sensed the impact directly behind him and looked back. He stopped when he realized his friend was not where he should have been.

_He's going back? _Shiva inquired critically. _In a situation like this? Why?_

Quistis shook her head but continued running.

_To give him a grenade, right? _Shiva guessed, quoting, _"To make maximal use of an already crippled and irrecoverable fighter to finish off any of pursuers," right?_

Quistis' facial expression tightened. She had indeed written that line in her esteemed Trepe's Handbook of Military Tactics, and Shiva had in her spare time read every word of it.

_Much more carefully than most of my own students_, Quistis was sad to say.

_And he remembered to do that at a time like this? _Shiva voiced in wonder.

The immortal was clearly impressed at what seemed like a de facto testament of and ovation for her mistress' teaching skills.

_You must be really proud of your students_, she complimented sprightly.

Quistis did not reply. She was too focused on Irvine's actions as he knelt down by where the two-ton dragon had fallen.

Irvine was in a state of shock. He was sure from experience with combat wounds from the field that the half-lifeless individual before his eyes was in shock as well.

"Great Gilgamesh, no!" he muttered, hardly believing what he was seeing. The lower half of the SeeD was lodged under the still beast. The bones were no doubt crushed and the bone marrow leaking out into his system. Mass internal and external bleeding as well as damaged vital organs could be expected.

Though he knew it was futile, Irvine put his shoulder against the belly of the dragon and braced his foot against the dirt, but try as he might, he could not get the weight to budge an inch. He tried again and again, each time exerting more force, but always found that it was himself and not the dragon that was sliding away.

"Sir," the SeeD said weakly, with mouthfuls of blood oozing out of the corner of his mouth, "You need to get going. They'll be here soon."

"Just sit tight," the sharpshooter instructed. "I'm going to get you out of here."

"You don't have any time left," the other said simply. "And neither do I apparently."

"I order you not to talk that way!" Irvine snapped, finding his voice hoarse and choked up.

"Mercenary Ethics 101," the boy reminded him with a contrived laugh. "Remember?"

Irvine put his entire weight behind the next heave, but the result was the same. The first sprinkle of half-ton ice shells had begun to fall all around them from the sky.

"Sir, the only reason you should be back here is to give me a grenade," the pinned SeeD spoke with labored breathing. "It's in both the Trepe combat operations manual and the course reading-packet they assign every year on the moral code of SeeDs."

Irvine grabbed his student sternly by the collar again and leaned down to voice unmistakably in his ear, "Damn it, you're not in the classroom anymore! This is the real world and I'm your book now! They don't teach you this in the certified manuals either, but by Odin, here's how the moral code in this world _really_ works! No one abandons anyone, and I'm NOT about to leave anyone I can still help out on the field to die alone, do you hear me? Do you?"

But one look into the glossed over, sunken eyes of the addressee told him that it was a lost cause. Over his back, Irvine could hear the voices of Quistis and Zell calling for him to run.

"Mercenary Ethics 101," the young archer repeated thoughtfully. "You never did call on me in there, sir…but there was so much…so much that I wanted to ask you about."

Finding strength from somewhere, the youth pushed Irvine away and then thrust the pointed tip of his bow into his throat, removing any reason for Irvine to continue lingering there.

Falling onto his back, Irvine only managed to sit up before his student's body went completely limp. It was just as if Stella had been there.

After that, Irvine tried to climb to his feet, but they were wobbling so badly that he fell forward onto his knees. His vision was flickering.

"Irvine!" came a shout from close behind him. "Look out!"

He looked up to see the razor tip of an ice pick zooming towards him. More instinctively than rationally he lifted his hands up to block it. The world was spinning so quickly that he did not know which way was up.

A pair of gloved hands reached in from behind and pulled him up. He found himself tumbling without meaning to and at some point his face was thrown straight into the ground. The blood rushed to his head and he blacked out.

"Zell!" Quistis called out as she weathered the phalanx of advancing dragons with ear-splitting cracks and lashes from her whip. "Bless you!"

It was not the most majestic of somersault-roll-and-tumble sequences, but for Zell to have gone in after Irvine, gotten there in record time, and somehow steered both his and Irvine's body clear of the danger from all directions was more than she had hoped for.

"No good, Quistis," Zell replied, wincing as he dragged Irvine's unconscious body over to the group. "I think I twisted my wrist."

The SeeD with the spear switched places with Quistis in fending off their attackers so that she could take a look at Irvine. Selphie was already by his side, inspecting the bump on his right temple. Her cellular phone was ringing again but she didn't seem to hear it at all.

"Why didn't you just take a hammer to his head, Zell?" Selphie protested in tears and made an effort to hit him with her bloodied right hand.

Zell, nursing his injured hand, didn't even make an effort to dodge the blow.

"She's not actually mad at you Zell," Quistis quickly stepped in and apologized for her. "Please don't be offended."

In a rare case of complete sympathy, Zell silently nodded and then looked away.

The spear-wielding junior officer was having problems and so the SeeD with daggers joined in the fight.

Despite Shiva's ice raid, the enemy was still some twenty strong and having shaken off the attack, converged upon the seven SeeDs with renewed fury.

"What do you want me to do, Quis?" Zell asked.

The phone was still ringing.

"I guess if I told you to take these two junior SeeDs and high tail to the garage while I hold the horde back, you'd refuse?" Quistis asked rhetorically. _It's not just his wrist. Now that I'm looking at him, his leg and shoulder are pretty cut up as well. He won't be able to put up much resistance here if we make it our last stand._

Zell nodded. "Yeah; we either go together, or we don't go at all."

Even as he said it, though, he realized that it was next to impossible with the injuries sustained between them to fend off the opposition for more than another few minutes, much less maneuver back across the field to the garage exit.

The ringing of the cell was getting on their nerves.

"Maybe we could call for back-up," Zell suggested half-heartedly. _Not that we have any. The only suicidal SeeD we had in our roster we just spent three minutes ago. Fat chance there's someone else courageously foolish like him out there just watching us and willing to stick his neck out for us._

Quistis wanted to laugh, but she was fighting back the tears that she felt would pour out any second now. In Squall's absence, she had failed them as a leader. Maybe the only thing she was fit for was nagging and cleaning up after them.

_So what are you going to do now, Quistis? _the Headmistress asked herself. _How do you save them when–_

She caught the vague shape of a humanoid dart out of the main corridor from the Garden. Now that the dragons had all gathered tightly over her weakened group, the doorway was clear.

_Oh, Shiva_, Quistis didn't dare to hope, _is that who I think it is?_

In seconds, the runner had traversed the distance and stood now, unnoticed, at the almost tangible perimeter of the aerial dome around the seven which the dragons had made their flight space.

The stranger's familiar voice called out to her, causing even Zell to look up and try to make out the face behind the wall of fangs and wings, "It looks like they have a superior position, seeing as how you're all grounded and they're all airborne."

Hearing his voice, a few of the dragons responded immediately, lurching back and eyeing their new prey with mouths gaping open and bared fangs.

"I'd be interested in any suggestions you might have about this matter," Quistis called back politely, "So long as you divulge it in an extremely _timely_ manner."

"Well, you'll never beat them on the ground," the man pretended to chide her, "But if you take to the air…"

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Jeremy's Scribbles:

I would appreciate your reviews for this chapter so I can see what you are thinking or feeling, so as better to go back and make corrections for other readers if I see that everyone is stumbling between the same two chapters. Also, if you catch any spelling or grammar mistakes, would you please notify me via email so that I may correct them as soon as possible? Thanks in advance.


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